Fate Comes To Midgar
by JohnnyCairo
Summary: Like The French Connection/Bullitt/Shaft/Lethal Weapon, starring our FF7 pals; Cloud and Barret are assigned to trail a recently-paroled crime lord, but things quickly get out of hand. This is a work in progress, so don't forget to R&R. Seriously.
1. Default Chapter

Notice: All (well, most) characters are owned by Squaresoft…blah, blah, blah… 

Notice: All (well, most) characters are owned by Squaresoft…blah, blah, blah… 

This fic is set in the Final Fantasy 7 universe in the 1970s. All inconsistencies and plot holes are intentional, as they go with the theme. Remember, this is a spoof of many different 70's action flicks, so please don't take everything too seriously. 

CHAPTER 1 

Rain poured in drenching sheets over tranquil little Kalm. It was a typical night for most of the villagers, as they moved to and fro among the streets, returning home from their jobs to the open arms of their families. 

Zack watched a man run from the Kalm Shopping Center to a covered bus stop where other people waited for their transit to arrive, the bus that departed for Midgar at precisely 7:06 PM. The man made it under the small structure in time to avoid a passing car. He sat down on the bench next to a pregnant woman. She couldn't have been older than 18, thought Zack as he watched the activity from his window at the Kalm Inn and Café. All this was intriguing when you were bored as hell… 

Across from him sat his partner, Cloud Strife. The kid was as green as a forest looked from the air. He had never been assigned to a case this big before, and as all the rookies did, he accepted the mission as a surefire way to get a promotion. 

Cloud sipped his mocha and watched the bus arrive at the bus stop, looked into the faces of the jovial villagers who would soon be on their way home. I wish I could look forward to going home, he thought. Then I might not take assignments like this. 

From their window was a prime view of the alley between the Kalm Dispatch and a hardware store. At any time, their suspect would meet up with the local hoods that pushed drugs to middle-schoolers and give them the "goods". 

"What time is it?" asked Cloud, looking at his more experienced partner. 

"For the love of Christ, kid… its 7:08." He said, looking at his watch. "Being undercover requires a lot more patience than you have, my friend." 

Cloud was curious about his mission. "Why are we trailing this guy, anyway?" 

Zack sipped his tea calmly and glanced out the window. "Well, it's kind of a long story. Last Spring, in Rocket Town, he set up a drug deal in a park with some local thugs. As you might know, Rocket Town's got a competent police department…at least, they DID." 

"I get it." Said Cloud. 

"The scumbag was in the middle of counting his money when a plainclothes cop walking down the street tackled him- that was part of the plan, mind you." 

"Uh huh…" 

"Anyway, our suspect sees him coming and pulls out his sword just in time to run the poor bastard through. As he pulls out the sword, he sees the police cars pull up to surround him… so he runs away with his money in a briefcase and hops in a black sedan. That's the last we've seen of him. The cops couldn't catch up with them… 

"Later on, we get an anonymous tip that he's setting up a deal tonight. We've got two cops on the corner down there…" -Zack pointed at a car down the street- "…and they're supposed to tell us when our man comes to get the goods. We'll sneak up and bag the bastard before he can do anything about it. In order to do that, we need to be staked out in this sorry-ass joint." 

"Stakeouts are so…boring." The rookie said, glancing out the window. "I thought I'd see more action than this." Little did he realize how wrong that statement would turn out to be. 

"I hate people like you." Said Zack, setting down his cup of Mako Tea. "You think that police work is all about action and glory. You're dead wrong, kid. I haven't killed anyone in months. I never get all the chicks I want, I never make the bad guys quake in their boots." 

"Just because you haven't doesn't mean that I won't, someday…" said Cloud, staring out the window again. There was still nobody in their alley. 

"I hate to burst your pathetic little bubble, but Sergeant Cid's gonna retire in about two years. He only worked his scrawny little ass up to that rank because he kissed ass. He kissed it until it got a big ol' hickey. I was in the same training class as he was back at the Academy. He couldn't shoot the blunt side of a barn, much less chase one down. However, he was a bureaucrat who did enough desk work for a promotion. Just remember that the next time he gives you a lecture on how tough it was being a cop 10 years ago." 

Cloud was in awe. He always revered Zack with an air of respect. He had no idea, however, that he was in the same class as Cid was. "And you're still a street cop, right?" 

"Don't even put me in the same league as you…" said Zack. "I gotta take a leak. Knock on the door and tell me if there's anything going on in our alley, okay?" The senior officer stood up and strode to the other side of the café, almost bumping into a tall man with long, flowing silver hair that walked into the restaurant. The character wore a black raincoat and had on sunglasses that covered half his face. Rain dripped from his raincoat as he looked around the café quickly, to see if there was someone he knew. He stopped looking around and seemed to stare in Cloud's direction. 

Cloud looked back at this man, who seemed awfully suspicious at first glance. He had no idea who the suspect was that they were trying to catch, just that he had silver hair…. 

His eyes locked onto the flowing, silver hair that just reached the man's shoulder blades. If their suspect had made it inside without them knowing, then their contacts at the Kalm Police Department were being sloppy. Too sloppy. 

The man walked past Cloud and sat down in a booth in the other aisle. The smell of this man lingered in the air… it smelled like…Cloud couldn't place the right word, but he was positive that he had smelled it at the department store before…in the cologne section. At JC Penney… that was it. "Intoxication" by Calvin Klein. It smelled like stale whiskey, saliva, and perfume all mixed together. 

Zack needs to get back…right now. 

Cloud stole a backwards glance at this stranger. He was taking off his sunglasses. He seemed awfully sure that he was safe in here. Strife found himself staring into the man's impossibly green eyes. They glowed, as if they had been exposed to too much Mako. If only they had a clue what the suspect looked like… 

"Pass me another donut, Joe." Said the man in the driver's seat of the Ford LTD police cruiser. It was the only car that the Kalm police department was able to afford, and since the two officers inside were assigned to a "very important case", it was in their care for the evening. 

"Sure thing, Trevor." Said the cop in the passenger's seat. Fortunately for the two of them, the Kalm Bakery was open until midnight. They could stay in the car and eat as much as they wanted! Joe passed a doughnut over to Trevor. 

Officer Trevor Gardoli eyed the chocolate doughnut before him. Everything that came from the Kalm Bakery was a work of art, and this perfectly round pastry was no exception. Opening his mouth, he stuffed it all in. Chewing, the police officer savored the chocolaty taste flowing over his taste buds. Life was sweet- literally! 

He let out a loud belch as he wiped the residue from his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform. At 290 pounds, the officer had had his share of sweets. When he joined the police force 6 years earlier, he was at 210 pounds and could bench-press 350. Looking at his arms, he realized that they had grown large and flabby from the excess fat. He'd be lucky if he could catch a 20-pound medicine ball at the gym where he worked out about once a month. 

Joe Carbone was far more out-of-shape than his obese friend. Boasting a double chin that was larger than his regular chin, a bushy handlebar mustache, and a massive potbelly, he looked like he could crush a man under him. The last time he had weighed himself, the scale couldn't register. Joe averaged about a box of a dozen of Kalm Bakery's bear claws a day. 

But it was all justified, because they could both use their sidearm whenever they wanted to. Such was life on the police force. 

The two of them listened to the rain hammer the roof of their car. 

"Damn, I wish we could eat outside. I like to feed the birds." Lamented Joe. He always had a fondness for pigeons. 

"What birds? That Mako shit from Midgar's factories is coming over here and killin' all the wildlife! There ain't no more birds here, man. I want to move to Wutai some day. Wouldn't that be the life?" 

"Amen, brother." Said Joe, wolfing down another doughnut. 

Trevor's hand moved towards the doughnut box. Suddenly, he realized the box was empty. "Damn!" he screamed. "We gotta get some more." 

"That's all we do on these stakeout missions. Eat doughnuts. Every time we run out, I gotta get them. Why the hell don't you get them for once?" 

"Oh, so you're getting tired of doughnuts?" 

"No, I'm not saying that, pal…" 

"Good. Get some more." 

Grumbling, Joe opened the car door and stumbled outside. He struggled to stand up, and then closed the door. The rain was pouring ever harder. Joe half-heartedly raised an arm to shield himself from the water while the other hand gripped the doughnut box. Seeing the trashcan, he waddled over and dumped the box in. 

Wiping his hands of the doughnut crumbs, he took a look down the street. Their out-of-town friends were in the Kalm Inn and Café about half a block away on the other side of the street. 

Trevor and Joe's job was to see if anyone entered the alley that was under surveillance. Then they would radio Inspector Zack at the Café and they would arrest the scum who would fall into the trap. In other words, it required a lot of doughnut eating to keep concentrating on their boring and menial task. 

Turning around, Joe walked down the sidewalk. Around the corner was the Kalm Bakery. Maybe I should get two boxes, he thought. 

Suddenly, down the sidewalk, he could make out a shadowy figure duck behind a mailbox. I'm just dreaming. Joe told himself. He kept walking until he passed the mailbox. On instinct, he looked behind it. Nothing there, of course. 

He reached the bakery without incident and bought two loaded boxes of chocolate-covered doughnuts. Enough to feed a small army, or him and Trevor for a couple hours… 

Joe found it awkward to walk with two boxes being held at once. Of course, Carbone wasn't the most athletic officer in the Kalm police force. Rounding the corner, he could see the waiting police car. The boxes were getting soaked, though, and the water tended to bleed through cardboard. Trevor's gonna have my head if the doughnuts get wet… he thought. 

Officer Carbone quickened his pace, but his shoe caught on a crack in the sidewalk. "UUGNH!" he uttered as he fell. The boxes flew from his grasp and opened on the soaked sidewalk, doughnuts spilling like a child's building blocks. His face hit the pavement. He never looked up again. 

The figure emerged from the shadows and pointed a pistol at the back of the prostrate officer's head. "What a waste." The man uttered with a Russian accent. 

"Who's there?" groaned Joe, attempting to pick himself up. 

"Too late, Officer Carbone," was the last thing Joe heard. The suppressed shot went off in the darkness, burying a 9-millimeter bullet in the back of his head. 

In the police cruiser, Trevor was attempting to find a decent radio station. 

"Man!" he muttered to himself. "All we get here are Midgar stations…all those bastards like to listen to Rock music. I need come Country, dammit!" 

His search ended at a suitable station. "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso…I fell in love with a Mexican girl…" 

"I love you, Marty Robbins!" shouted Trevor to the radio. "Damn…if only Joe was here. This is his favorite song." 

Trevor's hand moved to the knob on the side of the seat. "Does this have power seats?" he asked himself, expecting an answer. 

He saw a switch and instinctively flipped it. To his surprise, the seat tilted back. Trevor let it tilt back all the way, until it was almost touching the back seat. He leaned back and listened to Marty Robbins strum on his guitar. 

Unbeknownst to him, three men emerged from the hardware store across the street and slipped into the alley. 

TAP-TAP-TAP. 

Trevor looked up to see an unexpected face at the window. His left hand touched the power window button. The passenger-side window rolled down, seemingly from its own volition. God, how he loved this car. 

"Excuse me, but how do I perambulate to the Kalm Bakery?" said the man, who had a definite Russian accent. His face was shrouded in shadow. His hand was getting something out from behind his back… 

"Uhh…you go down the street to your right and then turn the corner. You can't miss it. By the way, what's in your pants?" 

"Thank you, officer." Said the unknown man. All at once, he produced a silenced Makarov from his trousers. Trevor found himself staring down the barrel of the weapon. 

He had no time to think before a bullet exited the gun and blasted through his head, which suddenly jerked back against the window in a splash of blood. His body jerked up and slumped down on the seat again, arms dangling by his sides. Trevor's eyes were still open in fright and shock and his mouth hung open. 

The Russian man admired the perfect bullet hole he made in the officer's forehead. Sephiroski will be most pleased. He told himself. The man nonchalantly stuck the pistol back in his pants and walked away from the police cruiser as if nothing had happened. Now he needed to give the signal. 

Walking in front of the alley where the drug deal was going to take place, past the three hoods that were carrying on a conversation. He instead walked into the hardware store and approached the clerk. The store appeared empty except for the bored-looking teenager before him. 

"Can I help you?" asked the clerk. 

"Let me see the power switch for your electric sign." Said the Russian. 

"What the hell? Why do you need to…" 

"Don't act like an ass. I am your customer. As you Americans say, `the customer is always right'. Do as I say. Your yak seems like it needs a haircut, wouldn't you agree?" 

"Huh? My yak…?" 

The Russian flinched. His English skills needed work. Not one to prolong a conversation such as this, he produced his Makarov for the third time that night. 

"A gun!" screamed the clerk. 

The Russian squeezed the trigger again, firing into the wall behind the teenager. A power drill fell off its mount and clattered on the floor. "Now will you do as I say?" He received furious nodding from the clerk, who was obviously untrained in a situation such as this. 

"Good. I want you to flip your light on and off twice. Got it?" 

More nodding. The clerk was cooperative. He approached a switch on the wall and flicked it four times. Off twice, on twice. 

"Thank you." Said the Russian man. He put his sidearm back and strode out the door. "I feel like cardboard." The clerk tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation as the door closed. 

Zack peeked out from behind a rack of circular saws. "Is he gone?" 

The clerk grunted reply. "Uh-huh." 

"Did you catch what he looked like, by any chance?" asked the officer. He came out from his hiding spot and walked out in front of the counter where the Russian was seconds before. The clerk could see his entire body now. There was a massive sword strapped to his back, almost as long as the man was tall. He wore purple, too. Either the guy's colorblind or he's a homosexual…the teenager rationalized. 

"Who are you?" asked the clerk, cowering against the wall. He had had one hell of a night so far…being held at gunpoint, and then being confronted by a mysterious-looking man with a six-foot sword. My, how crazy the world was. 

"That's not important now. Did you see what the bastard looked like?" 

"Black hair…kind of like yours…a ponytail…glasses…trench coat…he looked like a real bad-ass to me…can you leave now?" said the clerk. His boss was already going to kill him about the power drill. 

"Thanks, son." Zack ran out the door. 

Cloud looked at the clock on the wall at the café. It was 7:16. Zack had been gone for about 5 minutes. That was far too long to be "taking a leak". He drained the remaining liquid in his cup and glanced out the window again- 

There were three guys there. They appeared to be having a conversation… 

What happened next was even more out-of-place. The "Kalm Hardware" sign flashed on and off twice. Cloud's head snapped back to look at the green-eyed man. He stood up as soon as Cloud's glance turned towards him. He slid the sunglasses back on his face and walked towards the exit. 

For the love of God, Zack…Get the hell out of the bathroom already! Cloud's glance went out to the street again. A man walked out of the hardware store and trotted over to the alley next door. Seeing the three hoodlums, he strode into the alley and started talking to them. From his body language, it looked like he was telling them something that they didn't take too well… 

The green-eyed man's head momentarily blocked Cloud's view. He was walking down the other side of the street from their alley. He disappeared from view shortly afterwards. 

This is too weird to pass up, thought Cloud. Screw Zack. I'm hot-dogging this one. Under the table, Cloud discreetly took out his service revolver and loaded the chamber with six police-issue rounds. Once it was full, he snapped it back into place. Cloud tucked the gun into the hip flask and stretched his shirt over it. 

Tossing a $5 bill on the table to cover the Mako Tea and his coffee, he stood up and left the restaurant. 

"Thank you." Said a waitress as he opened the door. Cloud grunted back. 

Cloud pushed open the glass door and walked outside into the rain. To his right, the man from the café walked down the sidewalk and suddenly ran across the street to the other side, right next to the police cruiser that was surveying the alley along with them… 

The realization hit him like a thunderbolt. That man with the green eyes was his suspect. He was going to kill the Kalm police officers! That was the only conclusion that made sense to Cloud as he ran down the sidewalk after the green-eyed man. 

"Whaddaya mean, the deal's off?" said a bearded, scruffy-looking hoodlum. The Russian man with the glasses and ponytail was in front of him with the tragic news that their drug deal was to be postponed. 

"I kind of need that shit, like, TODAY." Said another hood, who wore a Starter jacket and a baseball cap. "I get most of my sales at sports events…and the Kalm Clams are facing the Junon Jaguars tonight at 8, which is really goddamned soon." 

"Yeah. We need to eat and stuff…" said the third hoodlum, who was chewing a soggy cigarette that had burned out long ago. 

"Look, we couldn't get in touch with our supplier yesterday, and he ships your cocaine from Columbia on Thursday mornings by airplane. They come in to our warehouse and we sell them to you at night. That's how it works." Said the bespectacled Russian. 

"But we need them NOW! I have your 10 grand, take it or leave it." Said the man with the Starter jacket. He was carrying a briefcase in his right hand. 

"I would wish to see this `10 grand' that you speak of." Said he Russian. 

"No drugs, no cash." Said the man chewing a cigarette. 

The men glared at each other in silence for a few seconds. Rain from the skies above pelted them mercilessly. The sound of the raindrops hitting the metal roofs was all that was heard during those lingering moments. Then the scruffy man spoke up. 

"If we give you the dough in advance, will we have our shit tomorrow?" 

"Shit? I don't tend to think of it that way, my charred friend." Said the Russian, flinching again at what he just said. 

"Charred, eh?" spat the cigarette chewer. His unibrow furrowed up. He looked to his right. "Perhaps we should go into that newspaper building and…settle our differences." 

A car hissed by on the road. The Russian couldn't believe what this man was implying. If he were unarmed, he would be dead by now… but the only people who would die were these lowlives before him. That was how Fate worked. And if Fate saw his signal, he would arrive very soon. He smirked at the irony of it all. 

Zack picked the lock on the door to the Kalm Dispatch relatively easily. The old, rusted-out door swung open smoothly. The officer slinked into the building and shut the door as quietly as he could. 

CLICK. The door closed and Zack locked the deadbolt from the inside. He was glad that there was a back exit to the café, as it allowed him to get away from that green kid he was paired with. Zack had managed to escape to that hardware store with ease. Taking a hiding spot there, he waited until all the customers were out, including some bozo that wanted to mess with the light switch who had a Russian accent. 

His excuse about him "taking a leak" was not really sturdy enough to allay the suspicions of a brown-noser like that Strife guy, but that was life, wasn't it? If everything went according to plan, he'd nail their suspect and his accomplices and drag their asses back to HQ before dinner. 

Looking around, he saw that there was a desk at the very front of the building, and there were small offices all around the building. He walked down the hallway and saw what he was looking for- a staircase. 

Going up, Zack looked for a door that would overlook his alley. Finding one, he inserted his lock picking wire into the keyhole. There was a soft click and the knob turned. He tiptoed into the office and shut the door without making any noise. 

The office must have belonged to a guy with kids. On the desk was a sign- "ERNEST FROST- ACCOUNTANT" On the walls were various diplomas and some drawings hung up; they looked like small children drew them. Walking behind the desk, Zack noticed a lot of family pictures with a balding, middle-aged man in them, along with a fairly attractive blonde woman and two young kids- a boy and a girl, around the same age. There was a myriad of pictures: the family at the barbecue, at Shinra World, at a birthday party. 

Taking it out of his mind, Zack concentrated on the task at hand. There was a fairly large window with a set of Venetian Blinds in front. Zack pulled the hanging cord downwards. The blinds slid upwards. 

SSSCHIK. Zack peeked through the window, down on the men talking. They were oblivious to the fact that someone was watching them. It was the feeling that Zack lived for. Raindrops hammered the window, and Zack's vision was obscured. 

Since he needed to listen in, he unlocked the window and opened it fractionally. 

CREAK! The stiff, waterlogged window frame let out a noise that could have awoken a corpse. Zack was petrified with horror. Suddenly, there was a clamor in the alley below. 

"What the hell was that?" 

"I saw the window open!" 

"There's a guy there!" 

Zack hit the floor and prepared for the worst. Now he needed the snot-nosed rookie to help him. Everything was easier with someone else there… 

The green-eyed man crossed the street and walked up to the squad car that was parked at the corner, by the Kalm Bakery. He had eaten there at lunchtime when he was scouting out the area for tonight. His plan appeared to be coming off without a hitch so far… now he would know if his associate was reliable. 

He approached the car. So far, he could see nobody in there moving… 

There was a bright red sunburst of blood on the driver's side window. Stepping up next to the car, he could see the slumped figure of a fat police officer lying unmoving in its seat. Looks like he dispatched one of them in the car… now where's the other cop? 

He walked around to the other side of the police cruiser. Looking down the sidewalk, he saw a pile of…something. It was about 100 feet away. 

Walking up to it, he realized it was the second police officer. He, too, was killed execution-style, with a hole in the back of his head. A dark, wet puddle was forming under the head and running down the sidewalk, spread by the rain. Opened boxes and chocolate doughnuts were scattered about. 

The man crouched down and felt the officer's neck. It was still warm. That meant that he had been killed recently. His fingers moved to the open head wound and probed the outside a bit. He got some blood on his right index finger and slowly moved it into his mouth. His tongue licked the wet fingertip. He missed the taste of blood from time to time. The man stood up and viewed the corpse before him again. 

He is competent, the man reflected. Just like last time when he showed off his driving skills…now there will be no more police interference. 

The man was about to walk over to the alley where the `deal' was supposed to occur when a woman rounded the corner past the Kalm Bakery to see the gruesome sight. 

"AAAAIEEEE!" 

Cloud noticed the man observing the police car with a little too much interest, which piqued his curiosity beyond its limits… but then Strife saw him approach a dark heap on the ground and poke at it a bit. 

How odd, thought Cloud. I wonder what that is…? 

The man's back was turned to him. Cloud reached behind him and felt for the handcuffs. They were still there. They were there when he left Police HQ that afternoon. He liked to reassure himself of things… He felt for the revolver in the hip flask. Taking it out discreetly, he held it low, as not to draw suspicion. He pulled the hammer back. 

With his other hand, Cloud Strife crossed himself and uttered a word of prayer. May God help him bag this bastard. He stepped out into the street. 

From that first action, God was not entirely with him. A garbage truck headed for the Corel Landfill was on the road at the same time. It screamed down the road right in front of Cloud as he stepped out, missing him by about 6 inches. Water sprayed up onto him…a small price to pay for his life. 

Cloud watched the tail lights fade into the darkness. Looking forward again, he saw the man stand up. His back was still turned. Strife ran towards the man, his hand gripping his revolver tightly. 

Suddenly, when Cloud was in the middle of the road, a woman was walking out of the Kalm Bakery and was headed down the sidewalk when she stopped and screamed. 

"AAAAIEEEE!" 

Cloud froze in the middle of the street. The man suddenly ran towards the woman and drew a sword out of his coat. It was then that he realized it was too late. Time seemed to freeze at that instant as he looked towards the cop car to see that the driver's side window was red with blood. 

Both the officers are dead, Cloud realized. He stood in the street. He didn't want to move…he felt sick. He wanted to lie down and die, right here in the road. 

He watched the man run forwards with the sword out, cocking his arm out to the side. The woman was paralyzed with shock and terror. She did nothing but scream when the sword's blade slashed her throat wide open. Her body flailed a bit before it fell to the pavement. The man didn't need to follow through with his cut. It was clean and efficient. 

Cloud suddenly realized what had occurred before his eyes. Without thinking, he ran up to the man with his revolver out. He would have made it to him if it wasn't for the speeding car that roared down the street in Cloud's direction. 

The headlights shined on Strife as his head snapped to the side, suddenly aware of his present situation. However, there was nothing he could do to get out of the car's path. 

HOOONK! 

The man watched the woman fall, her throat spitting out blood. She hit the ground with a twitch and lied still. Lives such as hers were merely as valuable as those of insects. You could take them without feeling remorse or a feeling of having squandered someone's chances of living life to its fullest. He felt no feelings towards the still corpse on the wet sidewalk. Rain spattered the body, letting the blood from her throat run cleanly out onto the ground. 

He was about to sheath his prized Masamune Blade when he heard footsteps behind him, making pat-pat-pat sounds in the rain. Turning around, he could see a young man run towards him with a .38 in hand. There was no way he would be able to live. 

It was soon revealed that his work was cut out for him. A car suddenly screamed down the road, illuminating the person for a split-second before slamming into his right leg, the body hitting the windshield with a crunch. The brakes slid on the asphalt as the driver attempted to stop safely. 

The man took this as a sign that the Gods were with him tonight. Sword in hand, he ran down the sidewalk towards the alley where his associate was to be waiting. 

"I saw someone in the window!" shouted the hood wearing the Starter jacket. He pulled a mean-looking .44 magnum out of his back pocket. His friends pulled out weapons of their own. The scruffy one had a sawed-off shotgun strapped to his back, which he readied with ease. The cig chewer produced a .38, much like the ones that the police used in this town. 

"Where did you acquire that?" asked the Russian, who had taken his Makarov out for the…fourth time tonight, he counted. 

"I got this here gun off a copper I capped last week!" he proudly announced. He stepped back to get a better view of the window. 

"I'm gonna get `im out…watch me!" said the scruffy man, who cocked his weapon and aimed it at the window. 

The others had their weapons aimed and ready. Scruffy fired at the window. The sound was deafening in the narrow space. 

Zack was about to peek out the window when the unmistakable noise of a shotgun blast was heard from below. The window completely shattered, blowing glass inwards. Shards rained down on the veteran police officer. He covered the back of his neck as the stinging needles shot down at him. 

Sometimes I wish I had a gun…he pondered. His eyes opened and he looked around the room. Glass was everywhere. He looked for his sword. It was where he had left it, leaning against the desk, handle-up. 

In the distance, he could hear the sound of a car honking its horn. At the time, he thought absolutely nothing of it. His hand gripped the handle of his sword, pulling it towards him across the floor. 

Risking his life, he peeked over the window frame. 

"There he is!" shouted the man with the Starter jacket. He tugged the trigger of the .44. 

The bullet hit the concrete wall of the building and fragmented, creating a large hole. The other hoodlums opened fire on the window upon seeing Zack's head pop up. 

Maybe I could grab the briefcase while they're shooting, thought the Russian, who moved towards the back of the group, eyes on the potential booty. I might not want to risk tempting Fate… he thought. 

The men stopped firing. "Little bastard!! WHY WON'T YOU SHOW YOURSELF?" screamed Scruffy, who cocked the shotgun menacingly. 

"Guys," said the Starter jacket man. "We've got ourselves a traitor." 

The three men looked behind them at the diminutive Russian. "You set us up, didn't you?" asked the cigarette chewer. He pulled the hammer back. The Russian man could see the chamber rotate slowly. There were two visible bullets left. If Fate wasn't going to arrive soon, he'd undoubtedly be dead. 

Starter sneered. "You lied to us…there's a high price to pay for that." He aimed the .44 at the Russian's forehead. 

"Look…look…we have…a-a-a new ship-shipment coming in tomorrow…" All the Russian could do was buy time. He was sweating like he was in the middle of the desert in summer. He still had the Makarov in his hand, which Scruffy noticed. 

"Put `er down, Russkie." He motioned to drop the pistol. 

"I'll blow your head off and mail your body back to Mother Russia. How'd you like that? That's what liars get. Now I can't sell my shit to the sports fans. That makes me pretty damned mad, son. When I'm mad, NOBODY MESSES WITH…" said Starter before the figure of a man entered the alley. 

The Russian grinned. Fate was here. 

SCREEECH! Cloud's back was forcefully smashed into the car's windshield. His body burned in agonizing pain. All he could do was keep his eyes closed as the car came to an abrupt halt. Carried forward by the momentum, he rolled off the hood of the car and fell onto the asphalt. 

He landed face-first, apparently so his entire body could feel the pain. Still trying to recover from the shock of what happened, he laid on the street for a moment. 

A car door opened. "Look what you did! Why did you step out in front of me like that?" Cloud felt a hand grab him by his shirt collar and lift his head up. The offended man was strong, all right… 

Cloud's back ached now, but didn't hurt all that much. A mean-looking face appeared in front of his, only about 6 inches away. "You just fucked up the windshield, man! Look at you! You're not even cut anywhere!" Spittle flew in front of Cloud's face, and the man's breath smelled of beer and potato chips. 

His hand, limp by his side, was still grasping the service revolver. "Let go of me…" he grunted. His used his left hand to push himself up, while his right hand shoved the .38 in front of the man's face. 

"Where the fuck did you get a heater? You crazy, man?" 

Cloud managed to stand up, and the owner of the car stood up with him. He was about as tall as Cloud was, but he was more muscular. Despite this, Cloud held his ground. "I'm Cloud Strife, member of the Midgar Police Department. I can place you under arrest if I so feel like it. Got it, punk?" 

The car's motor was still idling, and the lights illuminated the two men. Rain clung to the angry man's long, brown, ratty hair and dripped on his shirt. "Show me your badge. For all I know, you could be some…gangster…" he muttered. 

The flurry of gunfire coming from the alley could not have accented the situation better. "Shit! Must be some hillbillies having another fight again." He said, looking at the alley. With every gunshot, the walls lit up for a split second. 

Zack…I know you're there. I'm not a rookie, I'll show you. Cloud dashed off towards the alley, revolver at the ready. 

"Shit…" groaned the once-irate man as he looked at his car. The windshield was totally shattered- it'd cost at least $500 at any decent body shop. That asshole just HAD to run out in front of him like that… 

"Well…it looks like our Russian fellow's got `imself a friend." Said Scruffy, pointing the shotgun at the unknown man's chest. 

The man took off the sunglasses that obscured his features. His eyes were bright green- almost glowing. Taking down his hood, a mop of radiantly silver hair was exposed. "Look into my eyes," he spoke, also with a heavy Russian accent, "They will be the last things you see." 

"And my eyes will be the last YOU see!" shouted a voice from above. The five men swung their glances up to the shattered window. It was the purple guy that was eavesdropping on them! 

"What?" stammered the cig chewer in utter surprise. The soggy filter wrapped in paper fell from his mouth. "You've got a serious-ass death wish, my friend." He aimed his .38 at Zack, whose face was clearly visible in the window frame. 

Suddenly he felt something cold and hard press against the back of his head. The Russian wearing glasses had the silenced pistol trained on him. "I'd advise against that, you pathetic dishrag. Drop your gun." The cig chewer did as he was told and held his hands up in the air. 

"It's `dirtbag', not `dishrag'." Sighed the green-eyed Russian, who had taught his associate English. His hand moved under his coat for his sword. 

Scruffy looked back at him, keeping his aim steady. "Don't get anything out or else I'll send you back to Allah or whatever the hell you believe in up there." 

Starter Jacket switched his views back and forth between the second Russian and the purple snitch. "Get the hell down if you want to see your friends with their heads on!" 

Zack had a nice laugh at that. "Friends? Not really…" he had his sword hidden from view under the windowsill. My Buster Sword will be wet tonight. With blood. 

"What the hell?" said Starter Jacket. "Who is he?" he asked the Russian with the glasses and ponytail. His .44 pointed at the man he was inquiring. 

There were no guns pointed in Zack's direction. Now was his chance. Breathing in deeply, he leapt through the window, Buster Sword in hand. He landed behind Starter Jacket, who was about to ask the Russian his question again. 

"Hello." He said, causing Starter Jacket to turn around and stare. 

Scruffy's gaze shifted also. NOW! The Russian screamed to himself. He opened the fold of his coat and produced his curved katana. The hoodlum's back was turned. A shame that a man that thinks so highly of his power could expose himself so stupidly! 

The hood did not see the sword swing towards his exposed right arm. The blade hacked through skin, muscle and sinew, shooting out a brilliant spray of blood. 

Time seemed to go in slow motion. Scruffy's head snapped to the side to stare at the fresh wound in his arm. His finger squeezed the trigger out of sheer reflex, the massive muzzle blast lighting up the alley but hitting nothing but air. The recoil flung the weapon out of his hand as he opened his mouth to scream. 

Following through, the green-eyed Russian back slashed. This time the blade sliced across Scruffy's unarmored chest, exposing the ribcage. The hoodlum let out a guttural scream of death as he fell to his knees and then to the soaked pavement. 

Starter Jacket watched his friend fall to the ground dead. First there was the guy turning up behind him, and then the Russian staring at him. With anticipation, it seemed… Fuck it. He thought. Fuck it. With that one thought remaining in his head, he aimed the .44 at Scruffy's killer. 

The bespectacled Russian stared in horror at Scruffy's death. He had never seen someone die that way before. He had yet to get used to his employer's method of dispatching people. He preferred a shot to the back of the head, and that was what he would do now to this hostage. 

Suddenly, Starter Jacket muttered something incomprehensible and pulled the trigger back twice in a row. 

BLAM! The first bullet impact took the green-eyed man by surprise. The .44 caliber bullet exploded into his left shoulder, tearing away the skin and shattering the clavicle. In a burst of gore, the Russian fell. 

BLAM! The second shot went past his head, missing only by a few inches. 

The other hoodlum saw this as a means to escape. He elbowed his captor in the stomach and knelt to pick up his .38. 

The Russian with the ponytail doubled over, clutching his stomach. 

"Let's get the hell outta here! It's a fucking setup!" screamed the cig-chewer who didn't have a cigarette left to chew. 

Zack watched his suspect go down. In his mind, it was all over at that moment. The hoodlum had helped him capture the drug kingpin. "Not so fast there…" he said in response to the cig chewer's statement. He started to approach the writhing body of his suspect. The man's hand was over the wound as if he was trying to take the bullet out… 

Zack kneeled down and didn't let his voice rise above a whisper. "So, Mikhail Sephiroski… I finally catch up to you…after all these years…you're the reason why I stayed on the police force…looking day and night for you." 

The suspect groaned. They thought he was captured. He wouldn't let himself off that easily, for he was much better than that…THERE! His fingers tightened around the bullet that lodged itself in his shoulder- really deeply. With one tug, he wrenched it out. 

"It'll be the last day you set eyes on me, you slime." He growled. 

Zack saw him take out the bullet with a mixture of shock and disgust. He knew everything about this man- he was a top-ranking Spetsnaz trooper, he trained with the best of the best of the Red Army. Zack bet that he was trained to resist extreme pain like Sephiroski was inflicting on himself. 

Starter Jacket came up and watched with Zack. "Shit! That's gross!" 

Sephiroski had their attention. Now was the ideal time to strike. In one swift movement, he picked up the sword from the ground and swung at the nearest opponent- the man wearing the jacket. 

The blade cut through the air, but didn't hit anything. Starter Jacket still had one hand on the .44 and one on the briefcase with 10,000 big ones in it… That can be easily remedied! Thought the Russian. 

It was then that Cloud Strife showed up in front of the alley. He could see one man dead, and the others in utter confusion. Zack stared him right in the eye with a look that Cloud would never forget. The glance seemed to be telling him everything that his partner was thinking… You bastard. You wanna get yourself killed, don't you? This is a great way to do it… 

The Russian stood up, brandishing his sword. "Don't come near! Everyone, drop your weapons!" Then his green eyes looked at Cloud. They seemed to light up, like he was glad Cloud was there. 

"Hello! I remember you from the restaurant down the street. So you're a cop, too… go figure. Why don't you honor my request like your friend Zack is doing?" 

The other men there were oblivious to Cloud's presence. Zack tossed his sword on the ground, and Starter Jacket did the same, albeit reluctantly, with his .44. Cloud stayed where he was and threw down his weapon. His eyes were on Scruffy's shotgun, which was about 20 feet away… 

"Good…now hand over the money and I'll be leaving you." Said Sephiroski. 

The only person that didn't drop his weapon was the cigarette chewer. He watched with anxiety as Sephiroski's assistant struggled to get back up. He did not see the silenced pistol on the ground by the Russian's feet. 

"Good… Now hand over the money and I'll be leaving you." He heard from the Russian. That Russkie prick's not gonna get any of OUR cash!! His thoughts screamed. 

Running beside Starter Jacket, he cocked the .38. "Don't even think about it!" he announced. "That money's ours!" He jabbed with the pistol. "Go the hell away." 

All the while, Zack had been "talking" to Cloud. He gestured to the shotgun on the ground with a jerk of his head. Cloud nodded as if he had been thinking it all along. Zack's lips mouthed, "When the suspect turns his back, grab the gun." 

Cloud mouthed back, "I'll do that." 

Sephiroski stared the cig chewer in the eye. "Why should I go away when that money belongs to me?" He moved the point of his sword closer to him. 

"I'll shoot!" he said. His voice showed signs of desperation. 

"Go ahead. I've been shot once tonight, why not a second time?" said the Russian, with an air of arrogance and sarcasm. To punctuate this, he glared at his bullet wound. "This hasn't been the most relaxing night of my life…" 

Sephiroski's associate gained his wind and stood up, retrieving the Makarov from the ground. He was infuriated that he let his guard down so easily. He could see the men in front of his employer, and the cigarette-chewing man among them…who had a gun trained on Sephiroski! Nobody ever had the balls to do that to him… 

He strode confidently behind the cigarette chewer and pressed the barrel of the pistol to the back of his head. Nobody noticed him. "You shoot Sephiroski, I shoot you." He whispered to his victim. 

The trigger was pulled. The cigarette chewer's right eye was blown out along with a large chunk of his forehead. Blood and brains showered onto Sephiroski's face as the body simply fell over at his feet. 

"…Thank you, Hojovko. You have proved your worth once again." He wiped gore off his otherwise flawless-looking face. There was movement in the corner of his eye. Whirling to the left, he saw Zack make a move for his sword. 

"Infidel!" screamed the Russian, swinging his blade at Zack, who was barely able to parry the blow. The two swords clashed. 

Starter Jacket was terrified. In his vain attempt to escape with his cash, he shoved himself against Hojovko and hit his head with the .44. The steel barrel slammed against the Russian man's skull, creating a deep gash in his scalp. 

Hojovko reeled and clutched his wound. "BASTARD!" he screamed. 

Starter Jacket ran past Hojovko and down the alley. 

Seeing this, Cloud ran up to the shotgun and tossed in the air in one fell swoop. Catching it, he aimed at Sephiroski's back. He saw a move like that done in a Clint Eastwood movie before, and this was the first time his skill had come in handy. His foe was clashing with Zack, his back still turned. 

I think I'll pay him back for the police officers. Cloud decided on his own. For revenge, and nothing else, he pulled the trigger. 

CLICK. There were no more shells left in the chamber. Cloud wished he were dead at that moment. 

Hearing the sound, Sephiroski turned around for a split second and swiped his sword. The blade cut through the metal barrel as if it were butter. It came undone and fell in two pieces on the ground. The Russian whirled around to viciously parry a thrust from Zack and follow through with a solid haymaker to the side of his head with his other hand, knocking him down. 

"Excuse me, but I need to get my payment for the week…" he said, running in pursuit of Starter Jacket. "Hojovko, get the sedan! Meet me at the café!" 

His associate ran past Cloud and Zack, who was picking himself up off the ground. "Good day." He said, running out of sight before Zack could pursue him. 

"Shit. What do we do now?" said Zack. 

Cloud was still staring dumbfounded at the two pieces of his shotgun. 

"You know, you weren't supposed to use that as a weapon." 

"Uh-huh…" 

"Look, I bet they're bluffing about the café, but we'll have to call it for now. Hang tight over here until you see either of them. I trust you'll be capable enough to handle something like that. When you catch sight of either of them, radio in. I'm chasing after our suspect…" 

"Mikhail Sephiroski?" said Cloud, dropping the two halves of his shotgun. He looked at Zack with a mixture of anger and confusion etched into his face. "C'mon. I know that you've been following him for a while, I know that he sells narcotics to sixth graders, I know that he's a cold-blooded killer… but WHY did you lie about him?" 

Zack looked downwards at the gore-stained pavement where the remains of the cigarette-chewing man lay. "You're green, and I know you accepted this mission to gain respect in the police department. I didn't think you should have been given all the information I knew. I intended to keep you out of my way throughout the duration of our little outing here." 

"That's why you tried to ditch me at the café, right?" 

"Yeah, that's it. I guess I was wrong to underestimate you so soon, but you're still in my way. Try to help with catching the guy in the sedan…I'll see if I can find Sephiroski before he's got his grubby hands on the drug money." Zack tossed Cloud his portable radio. "Get in touch with HQ and tell `em what's gone on here. If we're lucky, this'll all turn out okay…the mission isn't entirely down the shitter yet." 

"Gotcha. I'll wait here. How do I tell you if I've found something?" 

"I'll go with my intuition as a cop. See ya, kid." Zack dashed down the alley in the direction that the Russian had fled. 

"Intuition…?" uttered Cloud. Walking out of the alley, he picked up his discarded service revolver and twirled it on his index finger, just like his buddy Clint Eastwood. He depressed the button on the side of the portable radio communicator, roughly the size of a brick. He spoke into it. "HQ, this is Strife, come in." 

The radio crackled back seconds later with the voice of Sergeant Cid Highwind. "Roger, this is HQ. What's your status?" 

Cloud held down the button again. "I've got some bad news to report, sir…you may need to sit down." 

"Cut the crap," Cid responded. "What happened down there?" 

"Well, sir…both the officers from the Kalm police force were eliminated…" At that time, Cloud was walking down the sidewalk to examine the bodies. 

"WHAT!? That can't be! They sent two of their best officers out there!" 

Cloud reached the police cruiser. The right-hand window was still open, and an empty shell casing was left on the pavement nearby. He looked inside. "The first officer's taken a bullet in between the eyes, his brains are all over the goddamned window." 

"Shit…" breathed Cid. "We're relaying this to the Kalm police right now." 

Cloud walked towards the heap near the trash can. "We've got officer #2 here on the sidewalk, he's also taken a slug in the head. Doughnuts are everywhere… looks like they were heavy eaters, judging by their bulk. Kalm must have a shitty P.D., if these are their `best officers'…" 

Cid groaned. "Kalm P.D. has been informed of this. They're saying that they're sending more officers your way on foot. What of your suspect?" 

"The narcotics dealer? Oh, he killed a civilian and a couple hoods with the help of his associate." 

"Associate? That must be his getaway driver from the last time we tried to nab this fuck. Get a description?" 

"Yeah, he's got glasses, he's about my height, got a nice long ponytail, pretty skinny. He was probably a KGB dweeb back in the day. He carried around a pistol with a big ol' silencer on it, probably not the crap silencers that the Russkies use. Those are basically soda cans filled with steel wool." 

"Uh huh. I'll do a search on him later. What was this about the hoods?" 

"The people he set up the deal with…apparently, our man wasn't gonna give `em any goods, but he just wanted the money." 

"They had no goods." 

Cloud leaned against the wall. He was tired of standing. "What was that? I didn't quite catch what you just said…" 

"They had no goods, Strife. Our intelligence intercepted a phone call from Seph to his associate. Knowing that they had no goods on them, we put the hoods there." 

Cloud was startled by this. "Did you bribe them off the street?" 

"No. They're Kalm police officers. We didn't tell them that they had help on this mission, though. They're under the impression that we've got choppers waiting for them if they feel the need to abort their mission. Little do they know that they're just expendable foot soldiers…" 

Strife tried to resist throwing the radio on the ground and resigning from the police force for good. "Something tells me that everyone's hiding something from me." 

"Shut up. Nobody's hiding anything from you. I just told you about the hoods. Where's Zack?" 

"He's chasing Sephiroski right now. The `cop' with the cash on him ran away from us, and the Russkie wants his money from him." 

"I see you figured out his name." 

"Yeah, no thanks to you. See if I ever trust you again to intelligence." Cloud was antagonized by all these cover-ups and lies…he needed a smoke. Digging the joint out of his front pocket, he struck a match on the wall and lit up. He didn't get a high off the initial puff, but that was not his intention. Marijuana calmed him down, and that's what he wanted to do right now. "If I survive tonight, will you give me a raise?" 

"Sure, kid. Whatever you say. Highwind out." 

Cloud walked over to the police cruiser and tossed the radio on the passenger's seat. That way, he'd be sure to find it again. A rogue drop of water hit the hit end of Cloud's joint and fizzled it out. "Damn." He tossed it in the gutter and let the water wash it away into the storm drain. 

There was still no sign of anyone. The boredom had begun to set in again. 

Starter Jacket emerged from the other end of the alley. Why did I decide to work for the bastards at Midgar? I knew they'd set me up like this. If I tell the Russian prick the truth, he'll kill me just like he did officers Renaldo and Gradsky…I guess it'd be smart not to tell him that the money's fake, too. 

He knew Kalm like the back of his hand, having grown up there. His real name was Greg Doan, even though people called him "Dr. Doan" for short, after the medicine. 

Doan looked down the street. On the other side, facing him, was a large apartment complex. He sprinted as fast as he could, still holding the Desert Eagle and the briefcase. Another disadvantage he had was the fact that the briefcase containing the fake money was attached to his hand via handcuffs. The key was in the back pocket of his trousers, making it next to impossible to retrieve them. 

Reaching the other side of the road, he saw a means to evade his pursuer. There was a fire escape ladder on the side of the building. Taking a look backward, he saw the Russian man run across the street. He almost seemed to glide, as if he was not human- 

"I SEE YOU!" he screamed. Sephiroski had his sword out again, still crimson with Renaldo's blood on it. "Your blood will be on the blade, too!" 

Doan aimed with his right hand at his foe. "Yours will be over the street!" He squeezed the trigger again. He didn't care to see if he hit anything, as he pulled himself up the ladder with his other hand. Once he reached the top, he kicked off the lower portion of the folding ladder and watched with some degree of satisfaction when it clattered to the ground. Standing up on the lower landing, he saw the Russian run up to the corner. 

"I see you're a resourceful person." He said, eyeing the portion of the ladder, which lay at his feet. "As am I…" 

Greg took no heed of his statement and fired again. 

Much to his surprise, the Russian picked up the ladder and swung it, seeing sparks fly as the .44 caliber bullet was deflected like a baseball. Knowing that time was of the essence, Doan leaped, grabbed the next ladder and worked his way up. 

"Admire my resourcefulness!" exclaimed Sephiroski with a huge grin. He chunked his crude weapon at Doan, who was still on the second ladder. The metal hit him square in the chest. 

"GAAGH!" he grunted. His left hand still grasped the ladder rung while his right hand flailed out. The Desert Eagle flew from his grasp. Doan watched in horror as his only weapon bounced off a railing and fell to Sephiroski's feet. He managed to continue up to the second landing as the Russian laughed. 

"I have no use for guns," he said. "I prefer my sword over anything else." He drew his katana again and swiped it across the ground, knocking the .44 into the street. "You are quite an entertainer." He said. "I'll let you continue to try to get away… just keep in mind that it's all fruitless…" 

Doan grunted, telling himself that Sephiroski was using scare tactics to get him to break his concentration. You're not gonna pull one over Dr. Doan, his mind reassured him. For some reason, it made things better. With some effort, he managed to pull himself up to the third landing. He glanced down. Sephiroski was 30 feet below him, he still wore a sadistic grin. Looking up, he noticed that there was one more flight to go before he was at the roof, ready to signal the Midgar police choppers he was told would be waiting for him if everything went to hell. 

"Had enough yet?" said the accented voice from below. 

"How do you intend on catching up to me?" replied Doan without really giving the matter much thought. "How is it `fruitless'?" 

"If you insist…" said the Russian. He bent his legs, kneeling low to the ground. "You'll need a running start, my friend." He said. 

This guy's a fucking nutjob…carrying around a sword like it's normal to have one around like that out in the open…Jesus H. Christ. Now he thinks he can jump up here. What an idiot. "C'mon, let's see you jump!" he taunted, leaning on the ladder on the second landing. 

Sephiroski breathed in. It's time to show this infidel what I am capable of. Like a spring, he shot vertically into the air, past Greg, who stared in total awe, and grabbed onto the railing of the fourth landing. Pulling himself over, he grinned at Doan, who stood slack-jawed. 

"How the hell…" 

Sephiroski dropped down beside Doan. "Well, now…quite a predicament you're in, wouldn't you say? He still held onto his Masamune Blade. "I'm debating with myself what to do with you right now…disemboweling, or something more sanitary? If you wish to save yourself the trouble, hand over my money and I'll spare you…unless you put me in a bad mood. Have you ever seen me less enthusiastic?" 

Doan backed up to the railing. "I-I-I…can't hand it over…it's-it's…" 

The Russian grinned even more. "What's that? Spit it out, or I'll force it out of you." To accent this, he moved the blade's tip closer to Greg's throat. 

A loud thunderclap sounded, followed by a blinding flash of lightning moments later. The rain intensified and the wind started howling like a feral wolf. Sephiroski's hair waved around, raindrops seeming to emanate from it. 

"I'm a cop! This deal was all faked! It was a setup by the Midgar Police!" stammered Doan, hoping to live through tonight, unlike most of his friends. 

"I couldn't care less. Hand over your briefcase." His hand was extended towards the suitcase's handle. "…Or I'll amputate your hand and get it that way." 

Greg let loose of the briefcase. It fell, only to be caught by the handcuffs that bound it to his hand. "Sorry, pal. You'll have to pass this up." 

Sephiroski shot Doan with a baleful stare. "What was the point of attaching a briefcase to your wrist?" 

"I told you, it was a setup by the Midgar Police! They never expected me to pay for your drugs. It's all a game to them, and we're the pawns! Can't you see!?" 

Sephiroski was taken aback by this. "What kind of fool do you take me for?" 

Another thunderclap. 

"It's the truth! You can have this money, I think it's just government tax dollars. Too bad the possession of government property is a federal offense." 

"Everything I do is a federal offense here." He took the briefcase that was attached to Doan's arm in his hand. Suddenly, he placed the flat of the sword's blade on Doan's chest and shoved him boldly back over the railing. 

"AAGH!" Greg started to fall, but was held up only by the handcuffs attached to the briefcase. "Don't hurt me! Put me back down! Please!! I beg of you!" 

Sephiroski extended his arm to its full length, letting Doan hang over the sidewalk. He showed incredible strength on a wounded arm. Taking his Masamune in hand, he pivoted his arm. "Sorry I can't make this any less painful, but I need to eat and stuff…" he smirked at that. 

"NO!" Doan flailed about, waving his other arm, trying to take out the key that would undo the handcuffs. "I'm sorry I shot you, really!" 

"Oh, I happen to be enjoying the pain. As for you, you won't have much time to enjoy it, my friend…" He pulled the sword all the way back, ready to strike. "Any last words before I get away with this?" 

A new voice from below sounded. "Stop! Put him down!" It was Zack. "I could hear you two carrying on over here. Made it really easy to track you down." 

"The guy's a madman, I tell you! PUT ME DOWN!" screamed Doan. Those were to be his last spoken words. 

"To tell you the truth, Zack…I was hoping you'd arrive. You have such perfect timing when it comes to important things such as this…" His blade sliced the air faster than light, it seemed. It cut through Doan's wrist like it was paper. At that same instant, there was an excruciatingly loud clap of thunder. The hand was cleanly severed from the arm, and nothing was left to restrain Greg from falling. 

He hadn't felt the cut, and as he started to fall, Doan stared at the bleeding stump where his hand was. He was in disbelief, utter denial. But he knew that the ground was rapidly approaching from below. That was not a dream. The lightning searing across the sky at that moment was not fabricated by his imagination. Greg managed to choke out a gurgle before he hit the sidewalk back first. 

With a crunch, Zack saw the last `hoodlum' die. His spine was broken. Nothing could be done; he was dead. 

"You bastard! That wasn't your enemy! He's a cop!" screamed Zack in utter rage. 

"Correction: he WAS a cop. Don't sweat telling me the whole story. The weakling spilled his guts before I put him down…just as you said. That was exactly what both of you wanted me to do." Sephiroski said from three stories up. 

"You asshole. That's not what we meant…" said Zack. "I swear to you this is the last time we meet face to face! I'm going to end this once and for all, Mishka." 

Sephiroski's features turned to shock. Only his comrades at the Spetznaz Academy called him Mishka in his youth. "How did you know that?" 

"I know everything down to your dick size." Said Zack with a chuckle. "I'm sure that's what most Russian men are proud of." 

"That's so crass of you to say that. One with an intellect like yours would never stoop that low to insult another man." 

"I always wanted to see how you'd take that." Said Zack, making his way to the fire escape ladder. "I'm coming up, Mishka!" 

Sephiroski eyed his briefcase and noticed that the cut from his sword was so clean that Doan's hand managed to stay in the handcuffs. Disgusted, he took the hand and threw it down at Zack. "Catch!" he said, leaping up to the fourth landing. 

How the hell does he jump so goddamned high!? Wondered Zack as he scaled the ladder to the second landing. "I'm gaining!" he said, hoping to discourage his opponent. 

"Your words are hollow, Zack. I could never imagine how you managed to pull off enough trickery and subterfuge for the Midgar police to get you here today." 

"Touching words, Mishka. You're really reaching." Zack ran up the third set of stairs. Sephiroski stared from above. 

"Sarcasm is a haven for the weak-minded, Zack." 

Zack landed on the fourth landing. "You must be cracking out those old philosophy books again, like you did in Siberia in 1965. Your buddies called you `Miska the philosopher', spouting off fortune cookie riddles like a faucet spouts water. You gave out their fortunes before putting a slug in each of their heads!" 

"It was the only way to relieve our boredom guarding the Muslims in the work camps, fool. If you were there, you might have identified with me." 

"I can't identify with someone who killed 39 people in one day!" screamed Zack. "You were the executioner. You and your friends were bored, so you took it out on some Muslims." 

"They deserved it, in my opinion." 

"You're not just a druggie, you're a murderer! You're considered a war criminal!" Zack scaled the last ladder to end up on the gravel-floored roof. Sephiroski was there, waiting with the Masamune out, leaning on it like a cane. 

"Your self-righteousness gets on my nerves sometimes." He tossed his sword up in the air like a baton and caught it by its handle. "I still remember taking every one of their lives that glorious day… the looks on their faces when I pulled the trigger, their fortunes would be coming true in the afterlife; if one even exists." 

"Yeah, well one of us is about to find out if there is one." Zack pulled his massive sword out and held it in front of him, in a fighter's stance. "I've waited so long for this day to arrive…" 

"As have I." Said Sephiroski, drawing some confusion out of Zack. "Do you know me?" 

"I addressed you by your first name in the alley back there. How soon they do forget!" he laughed. "I've been noticing your interest in me from the moment you messed up the Rocket Town deal…" 

Zack was dumbfounded. "How did you know I coordinated it?" 

Sephiroski grinned again. "I've got friends in very high places at Shinra- the same company who funds the Midgar Police, who, in turn, provide support for neighboring towns and cities with small police forces. Dear me, I know more about your corrupt system than you do!" 

"So you hired some shmoes to pull strings for you, right?" 

"I wouldn't call them `shmoes' if I were you, and I knew who they were…" "And who would they be?" growled Zack, his grip tightening on the handle of his sword. I might be able to strike and catch him off-guard. He planned. 

Sephiroski sensed a movement in Zack's arms, like he was tightening his grip. Over the years, and through his experience, he knew that that meant the opponent was planning on striking soon. Assuming a fighting stance, he said, "Young man, I've told you far too much…But that's alright, since you'll be dead soon." He laughed haughtily. 

Zack narrowed his eyes, staring at his opponent. Their fight would be a hard-fought one. "Come and get it, Mishka!" he screamed, charging headlong at Sephiroski. 

Cloud was bored stiff. 10 minutes without any sign of anyone, aside from cars that blissfully whisked by, unaware of the carnage that took place there. 

Damn. I wish something would happen…he thought, twirling his .38. He sat inside the police cruiser, in the passenger's seat, with only Trevor Gardoli's body there to keep him company. "Getting kinda lonely, eh?" he asked the corpse. "What's it like in the afterlife? I hope you're eating your share of doughnuts." 

Trevor's glassy eyes stared off into space. 

"Yeah, I know…it sounds pretty hard. Don't worry, I think you'll be seeing some of your pals up there real soon." Cloud took special interest in maintaining conversation with a dead body. 

Another car whisked by. Not him. 

Cloud knew that he was looking for a black car. Nothing more. He could usually spot a car's color within 100 yards, as his eyes were still keen. 

"This is boring…just like that stakeout." 

Trevor seemed to agree. 

"I assume you always find something to entertain yourselves. I'm no good. I haven't started to get into police work. The last time I saw action was the time that I shut down the brothel in Wall Market. Some bastard named Corneo running the place. I slapped some cuffs on him and led his merry ass into my police car." 

Trevor continued to stare into space. 

"Pretty amazing, eh? For me, anyway. I don't know about you, but that was the highlight of my career…so far. Now we'll never know what secrets you held. Maybe that's for the better. I guess I'm a little disenchanted with the police department right now, hearing that Cid was setting up a fake deal with Sephiroski…" 

There was another pair of glistening headlights in the rearview mirror. Cloud looked into it- 

YES! The car was black, and he could make out the outline of a head through the windshield. Images were somewhat unintelligible through the rain, but he could make out that the driver had a ponytail…and glasses. Cloud had his man. 

Having planned this out long ago, he reached across the officer's remains and opened the door. Putting his back to the other door, he placed both feet against Gardoli and pushed with all his might. 

The body rolled out of the car and into the street. Smiling, Cloud watched the results unfold. 

Hojovko only had a split-second to react to a body rolling in front of his car. "No!" he screamed, slamming the brakes. The car screeched to a halt to avoid plowing over the body. Hojovko looked over the dashboard. The body was unmoving, illuminated in his headlights. Plainly seen was a bullet hole in his forehead- 

"GET OUT OF THE CAR, NOW!!" yelled Cloud, running into the street, his .38 pointed at the windshield. "THIS MEANS YOU!" 

It's the cop! Thought Hojovko. I'll teach him not to interfere with our plans! He stomped on the accelerator. 

Cloud saw the back wheels spin on the pavement as the car lurched forward, with him in its path. With a grunt, he flung himself onto the hood of the car, grabbing the windshield wiper with his left hand. 

The driver's face had an expression of utter disbelief. A grin suddenly spread across the face. 

Uh-oh. Cloud cringed. 

Hojovko swung the wheel to the left as the car swerved into the other lane. Cloud glanced backwards. There were no oncoming cars…yet. Cloud's feet dug into the grille, preventing him from moving around too much. With his left hand, he pointed the .38 at the windshield. 

The driver had not anticipated this. In a sudden move, he swerved back into the right-hand lane. Cloud skittered across the hood of the car, being careful not to lose his grip. He took aim at the driver's face and fired the revolver. 

Hojovko ducked under the dashboard as he saw Cloud aim. Just in time, too. The bullet ripped into the headrest where his head had been seconds earlier, sending up a puff of foam and cloth. 

Cloud fired two more shots, even though Hojovko had ducked out of sight. The windshield shattered, blowing glass fragments into the car. 

"Agh!" screamed Hojovko, using one hand to steer and the other to shield himself from the glass. If he hadn't been wearing his glasses, he'd be dead. A large fragment fell and hit the right lens, cracking it. In his desperation to rid himself of the attacker, Hojovko pulled the parking brake. 

Cloud had a feeling in his gut that he should let go of the wiper and fall to the street. Acting on this, he opened his left hand and tumbled onto the street not a moment too soon. The car's rear end kicked out and led the car into a massive tailspin. The sedan caromed across the wet street into the left lane. 

This must be the "intuition" that Zack spoke of... Cloud realized. 

In its path was a parallel-parked dairy truck. Hojovko peeked up from under the dash to discover this. 

His mouth opened to utter a curse when the back of the sedan crunched up against the side of the truck. Hojovko's head was snapped to the side against the window, cracking it into a spider web pattern. Knocked unconscious, he fell, slumped over the wheel. His nose hit the horn. 

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK! 

Cloud stood up and covered his ears. His suspect was probably unconscious., leaning on the horn. He began walking over to the demolished car. Unfortunately, the gas tank was punctured in the crash and was leaking out gasoline onto the sidewalk. 

Two headlights appeared from down the road and were coming in fast. Could it be police support from Midgar? Cloud wondered. 

Hojovko picked up his head. How long was he unconscious? He looked at the young rookie who had apprehended him. It was all his fault. If it hadn't been for him, he wouldn't be in this mess right now. Sniffing, he could smell gasoline. Ah, it's probably nothing. He thought. 

Undoing his seatbelt, he checked to see if any bones were broken. None. That was good. Suddenly, he heard sirens from down the road. 

Shit! How did they get here so quickly? The police are NEVER this fast! He opened the door. It was to be his last mistake tonight. 

The police car roaring down the street was meant to identify the dead officers in the police cruiser down the block. The driver didn't notice Hojovko's car or Cloud, who jumped as the car rode unabated down the road…until it rendezvoused with the car door. 

A lone spark created from the meeting of metal and metal. The door flew off its hinges as the spark met with the giant puddle of gasoline, which ignited and sent a sheet of flame towards the gas tank- 

Cloud ducked behind another car as the police car de-doored Hojovko's sedan. With a loud BOOM echoing across the neighborhood, Hojovko's car, the dairy truck which was also packed with gasoline, and the police car went up in a massive orange fireball. The police cruiser was flung up in the air like a child's toy, onto the other side of the road. 

The dairy truck flew to the side, impacting against the side of an apartment building. A few people ran outside to see what was going on. Hojovko's car was immediately vaporized, presumably with him inside. 

I guess it's all for the better. Thought Cloud. 

The rain still came down, though. It was as if nature was ignoring what was going on around them… 

A lightning bolt lit up the town bright as day. On top of a distant building, Cloud could see two men on top…one wore purple and the other wore a black raincoat. 

The mission isn't over yet… Cloud ran off towards the building. 

A massive clap of thunder sounded, shaking the roof under Zack's feet as he lunged at Sephiroski. His sword almost met its mark, but was deflected with a parry from his foe. 

"Work harder than that!" jeered Sephiroski, spinning and slashing at Zack. 

Zack raised the huge sword just in time to block the blow. "I'm just as good as you are at this!" he countered verbally. He countered physically with another slash from the Buster Sword aimed at his opponent's legs. 

The Russian jumped over it effortlessly and landed to Zack's left. "Getting tired?" 

Zack swiped the sword at Sephiroski. With satisfaction, he felt the blade scrape against bone. There was a gash in the Russian's left arm. 

"I guess I won't be needing this." He said, throwing down the briefcase. It was as if he didn't care he was feeling pain. Zack wished he could have that ability… 

Sephiroski lunged again, the Masamune Blade clashing with the Buster Sword for a second time. He was getting slightly tired from this constant exertion. He didn't want to prolong their duel any further, but that was a task that proved very difficult to achieve. 

He walked backwards, parrying Zack's furious blows. He had lost the use of his left arm completely due to the bullet wound and the bone-deep cut. Sephiroski had an idea. "You're getting tired, I can tell!" he said, to demoralize his opponent. 

"Not yet!" said Zack, thrusting at Sephiroski's chest. 

"Gah!" shouted the Russian as he dodged the thrust and countered with a slash to Zack's arm. 

This time, Zack felt pain. The blade cut across the right forearm. The cut wasn't bone-deep, but he felt the open artery start to fountain blood. Dropping his sword, he covered the wound with his left hand. The sword bounced off the gravel roof and plummeted down to earth. Its final resting place was in the sidewalk, the point buried deep in the ground. 

"You…win…" he gasped out. 

Sephiroski stepped up to his vanquished foe, a wide grin on his face. "I am the victor, once more. Take your place in Hell, dear Zack!" 

Zack stared up at the demon before him…the man who would take his life away in an instant. God, let it be short. He pleaded silently. 

The Russian squealed with delight as he brought the sword down, plunging it into Zack's chest. The police officer's face contorted as the blade went through his torso, point sticking out the back. 

"I have business elsewhere." Said Sephiroski, suddenly serious. "Goodbye. You were a worthwhile opponent." 

He wrenched out the blade, watching Zack's body crumple to the rooftop. Sephiroski didn't need to see any more corpses tonight. He kicked the body over. 

Cloud kneeled to the pavement, tears filling his eyes. He had hurried over here to see the end of their duel…Zack was the clear loser. Cloud watched his body fall to the sidewalk, beside the sword. 

He walked up to the body, watching his blood flow at a steady pace into the gutter, mixing with the ever-flowing water into the storm drain. 

Switching his gaze to the sword, he picked it out of the pavement. It was lighter than he thought it would be. Holding it in both hands, it felt like it was meant for him. 

All at once, he knew what his duty was to be. Goodbye, Zack. You were a good friend, a mentor, and a complete asshole. I will avenge your death using any means possible. Sephiroski will pay dearly. I'll run him through like he did to you. 

Cloud heard the distant police sirens. He knew it was time to start his new life, his new career…After Sephiroski. Zack seemed to agree from his slumped state on the sidewalk. Such an undignified death… Cloud wanted to talk to him one last time, but he had enough talking to corpses for one night. 

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 0.6.7 -->


	2. Chapter 2

Untitled 

CHAPTER 2 

The doctors at Midgar Community Hospital were about to switch to the night shift at 8:19 when the first ambulance arrived. Nobody saw the figure shrouded in black jump off the top of the ambulance and hide in the shadows. 

The first ambulance pulled up beside the door leading to the ER. Two paramedics emerged from the back, pulling a gurney carrying a man with an incredibly nasty burn. 

"What the hell happened to him?" asked the head doctor on duty, Gary Ferguson. He ran up to the gurney to look at the patient. 

"He was unconscious when we found him about 40 feet from a car accident, sir. Apparently a cop car collided with another car, which hit a truck. It all went up in flames… if this guy was still alive it'd be a miracle." The paramedic scratched the back of his neck. "I'll leave him in your care tonight." 

"Thank you. My staff is more than competent enough to handle him." Said Ferguson, opening one of the patient's closed eyelids. "He looks pretty bad." 

"I know. There's been a shitload of deaths tonight in Kalm." 

Ferguson's eyes stared at the paramedic. "I heard about it in the news not 5 minutes ago. 6 cops died, right?" 

"Yeah. Our PD is gonna reel from this fuck-up. Take care, doc." The paramedic walked out the double doors and met up with his partner. In a flash, they were both in their ambulance and out to Kalm again. 

One of Ferguson's assistants, Dana Ross, ran up to the doctor. "Do we have to deal with another one?" she closed her eyes and shook her head sullenly. "One of these days I'm just gonna quit. All this overtime is making my husband worried about me…" 

"Don't worry about it. The hospital's paying us extra for overtime." Said Ferguson. "Help me push this lug into the ER." 

"Okay." Sighed Dana. "I'm gonna take tomorrow off, though." 

"I guess it's for the better." The two doctors wheeled the stretcher into a large room with blue-tiled walls, an operating table in the middle, and steel tables loaded up with medical instruments. 

They both lifted the body off the stretcher and placed it on the table. "Dana! Call over Moretti and Fox." Said Ferguson, donning an operating mask. 

Ross ran over to the phone and punched in a 3-digit number. "I just paged them. They'll be here soon." 

Ferguson nodded. "Good. While we wait, take a record of what our patient looks like. We can try to nail an identity for him…or her…" He looked at the partially- burned ponytail that extended from his head. "Do I need to check? Or do you want to?" 

"That's gross. I'm not in the mood to look right now." 

"Dana…that's what you always do with our patients, even if you know their gender! I thought you'd volunteer to do it." Ferguson was grinning ear-to-ear under his surgical mask. "Of course, you're going to go home to your loving husband soon…" 

"That's not very professional, doctor." Dana laughed and put on rubber gloves. "Do you wanna do it now?" 

"I dunno… We have to work on this schmuck first." 

Dana crept closer, a seductive grin on her face. "He's already dead, doctor. I can see it in his eyes…they're cold, gray, and lifeless." She stood in front of Ferguson, her hand stroking his chest. "I'd understand if you weren't in the mood now… but that's why I'm having an affair with you. My husband never wants to do it when we're at home…" 

Gary took Dana in his arms. "That's why I love you, Dana. You're so truthful about everything!" He took off his mask and shared a long, open-mouthed kiss with her. 

"This just in, folks," said the TV news anchor. "A few minutes ago, we told you all of the police massacre in Kalm…we now have positive identities for the dead." 

"Good," said Buford Moretti. "I wanna know who did this so I can personally find out where he lives and rip off his balls." He slammed his coffee on the table. 

"Shut up, idiot." Said Grant Fox. "You need to listen to this shit." 

"…The identities are as follows: Trevor Gardoli, age 43, husband to Grace Gardoli. Officer for the Kalm Police Department for 6 years. He took a bullet to the head." Said the anchor solemnly, reading off cue sheets. He ran his fingers through his oil-black hair. His brown eyes stared directly into the camera, creating the illusion that he was addressing the watcher personally. "His body was found in a police car, sitting in the driver's seat." 

"Good lord…" said Fox, his hand clutching the table. 

"Who cares who his wife is?" wondered Moretti, a medical student at the hospital who specialized in anesthesia. He chugged back the rest of his coffee like it was water. 

Fox, the senior of the two of them by about 10 years, was tall and lanky, with blonde hair parted down the middle. He had taken a dislike towards Moretti, and as luck would have it, they were on the same operating team with Ferguson and Ross. 

"Shut up!" he said, whirling towards the intern. "You make me want to puke sometimes! I can't stand it!" 

"Easy…they're still naming the victims." Said Moretti, a short, plump college student with curly brown hair and a square jaw, true to his Italian heritage. 

Fox fumed for a moment and sat down again. 

The anchor straightened his hair again. "The second victim found was Joe Carbone. He was lying on the sidewalk, apparently holding cases of doughnuts…" He was interrupted by studio technicians laughing in the background. The anchor smiled a bit. "That's what cops do, people!" he chortled. 

"Shit…" mumbled Fox, burying his head in his hands. 

"Why are you so serious, man? Lighten up a little!" said Moretti. 

"One of my cousins is a cop in Kalm." Replied Fox. "I'm gonna go outside and get some fresh air…by the way, you need to shut the hell up." 

Suddenly, the phone rang in the lounge. "What the hell's so urgent?" growled Morretti. He stood up and retrieved the phone. "Hello?" 

"Your presence is required in the emergency room," said the receptionist on the other end of the line. "Ross needs you now." 

"Fine." Grumbled Moretti. He turned around to report this to Fox. 

In front of Fox was a man with bright green eyes, long silver hair, and a black raincoat with a noticeable bulge in it. In his other hand was a briefcase with handcuffs attached to it. "Excuse me… can you tell me where my associate is? I'm in a hurry…" 

Fox staggered back, fear welling in his heart. "Who are you!?" 

The man slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt. "My formal name is Mikhail Sephiroski… but some people simply call me by my last name." 

Moretti's features hardened into a look of fright. This man chilled him down to the bone. "What are you gonna do? We're just doctors…" 

"Shut up!" said Fox. 

"Make me!" retorted Moretti. 

Sephiroski unsheathed his sword in clear view of both the doctors. "Tell me where my associate is or your necks will shortly feel the coldness of this blade." 

Fox cowered in the corner, behind the table with their microwave on it. He feebly held his hands up in the air. "I don't know who your associate is." 

"Fine. You want to play that way?" Sephiroski shifted his glance over to Moretti. "How about you? I know that my associate just came in a little while ago on an ambulance, and he's been moved into your emergency room. I understand you're a little shorthanded, and that's how I snuck in so easily. 

"So, care to explain?" he concluded, pointing the sword at the intern. 

"Geez, sir, I don't know a thing, just that we were summoned to the ER not too long ago. I suppose that would be your associate…" 

Fox glared at Moretti hatefully. What an idiot! He tells this man what he actually needs to know? Such ignorance! "He's lying. We don't know a thing!" Fox stood up to his full height. He was about the same size as Sephiroski was, but slightly less muscular. 

"I'll be the judge of that." Said the Russian man, pivoting his sword to the side. He suddenly had an idea. "Turn around and face the wall. I'll kill you rather painlessly." 

Fox spat in the face of his tormentor. "I'd like to see you try." 

Moretti watched all this with interest. Maybe Fox might know how to stand up for himself! He thought. 

Sephiroski wiped the saliva from his left cheek. "You just made the last mistake of your life, comrade." 

Fox swung his fist at Sephiroski. The Russian caught it in his left hand. Fox had mere seconds to discover that he had a gaping wound in his left shoulder, and a deep cut in his left arm. Fox could make out the dull white bone under the matted flesh. It was then when Fox discovered that this man was not human… 

"Let go!" he screamed. It was too late. Sephiroski smirked and started to squeeze Fox's left hand. Fox started to scream as the bones in his hand started to crack and crunch under the extreme pressure. "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" 

Nurse Martha Hollingsworth walked up to the door of the nurses' lounge, hoping that there was coffee left in the machine, and tried to open the door, only to discover it was locked. 

"Shoot. I guess they're doing maintenance…" 

Suddenly a muffled scream came through the door, one of extreme pain. "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" 

Martha drew her hands up to her mouth. "Oh, dear! I wish those doctors wouldn't watch their pornographic movies while they're on duty… I'll bring it up with their supervisor." She walked over to the second coffee machine on the other side of the building. "Such irresponsibility… raging hormones…" 

Fox collapsed to the floor, holding his hand. "You…you…" he growled while he writhed in agony on the tile floor. "Why…?" 

"Because you spit in my face, infidel!" roared the Russian. "I'll send you to a place that only infidels go to!" 

"Heh, that's right!" laughed Moretti, hoping to stay on Sephiroski's good side. 

"Shut up." Said Fox. "I wish you weren't so ignorant…" 

"Ignorance is bliss." Said Sephiroski. "You know what they used to call me when I was with the Spetznaz guarding the Muslim prison camp in Siberia?" 

"You were in the Spetznaz?" said Moretti, duly impressed. 

"Shut up!" yelled Fox again, moaning when his shattered hand throbbed. He rolled over on the floor, back first. 

"I was called `The Philosopher'… do you know why?" said the Russian, obviously enjoying his position of power. 

"Hell if I know…" groaned Fox. 

"One day, we corralled all the Muslim prisoners out of the camp and out into an open field. They were forced to remove their clothing in Siberia's weather. They told me that I was to execute as many of them as I could with two AK-47 clips. I accepted the challenge. 

"I walked up to the ones that I had taken a disliking to and shot them once in the head, sometimes twice. I loved doing that; it made me feel alive… so alive… I started to tell them what would happen in their afterlife, what consequences they will take from their actions as mortals… 

"'He who commits acts of infidelity in his mortal life shall be treated with equal disrespect in the afterlife.' Do you know what we call that, comrade?" 

"Shit…what is it with you and word games?" said Fox. "You get so pissed that I spit in your face…Jesus…" 

"That is called Karma, infidel. I've noticed your disrespect for your fellow man…it will echo in your afterlife, my friend… if you're lucky enough to have one." 

"That story was disgusting…" said Fox. "You're a fucking monster…" 

"Well, I suppose every man has his faults." Said Sephiroski. "Now it's time to see if my prediction comes true…" he raised the blade over his head like a golfer would raise his 9-iron before a swing. 

Moretti stared at the spectacle before him. During his time at the hospital, he had dreamed of seeing Fox die, but not like this… "Don't kill him!" 

Fox groaned one last time. "Shut…..up……." He saw the reddened blade gleam for a split second. Deep inside, he was glad that his dead-end life was going to come to an abrupt end, but he also wondered if Sephiroski's predictions would come true. 

Oh well, he thought. I guess I'll find out soon enough. The blade hit its mark. 

Ferguson and Ross held each other in their arms. "I don't want to do this operation," said Dana. "Honestly, why don't we leave right now?" 

"Honey…" said Gary with a kiss. "I can't abandon my co-workers like that." 

"Well, I'm a co-worker, aren't I?" she grinned, drawing a smile from Ferguson's lips. She lived for that smile… "Are you reconsidering?" 

"Look, I can't do this whenever…" 

"I get these urges sometimes…" she crooned. "I just want to be with you…" 

"I'm glad your husband hasn't caught on yet." Said Ferguson, taking off his surgical robe, revealing a Hooters T-Shirt underneath. 

Dana viewed it with some form of disgust. At least he's better than my husband… she thought. In more than one way. Ross hopped onto the stretcher that the patient was brought in on. "We can do it here." She said lasciviously, removing her puke-green robe. 

Gary licked his lips and took his shirt off, displaying a hairy chest of Sean Connery proportions. I look just like James Bond! He noticed. 

"C'mere, sweetie." Said Dana, pulling her boss over herself. They shared another sloppy French kiss. 

Man, she gives great tongue. Thank God I'm still single, so I can't be caught cheating… "Dana…" he moaned. 

Ross grinned. "You want more?" 

"I'm afraid that wouldn't be legal in Midgar… at least in public. I think we should call off the operation… that guy's a stiff, anyway." He gestured towards Hojovko's still body. "We should call in the coroner after we're done." 

"Good idea." Dana's hands moved to the buckle of Gary's pants with anticipation. "Are you sure we can't go somewhere else? I have the feeling that someone's watching me do this to you…." 

"You're so paranoid, sweetie." Another long kiss warmed up the cold operating room. Ferguson's hands discreetly moved to Dana's trim waist, to begin lifting up that old, sad white cotton shirt… 

RIIING!! The phone on the wall emitted a loud noise. 

"Shit! Who could it be?" Gary ran up to retrieve the phone. 

"It's probably Fox and Moretti," said Dana. "Maybe we should operate after all." 

"Whoever it is, I'm gonna rip their fuckin' face off with my own bare hands and shove it up their ass!" He picked up the phone and cooed into it. "Hello?" 

"Yeah, this is Moretti," said the voice on the other end. "Sorry it took so long, I went with Fox to get a Coke. We'll be there soon." 

"Oh, that's no problem. I think this guy's a stiff… take as long as you want." Said Ferguson. "As a matter of fact, you might want to call the coroner." 

"Okay, then. See ya." 

"Alright. Take care, pal." Moretti hung up. 

Ferguson hung up. "Asshole." He breathed. 

Moretti walked away from the phone, Sephiroski's blade still at his throat. "Feel free to take that away now. I didn't tip anyone off… just as I promised." 

"You did very well, then." Said the Russian, sheathing his sword under his doctor's uniform. He straightened up some folds in it. "Is my disguise convincing enough?" he asked. 

"Yeah, I'd say so." 

Moretti walked over to Fox's headless body. "I still don't understand why you needed to chop his head off…" 

"So I could use his uniform without bloodying it unnecessarily." The corpse was stuffed in a corner with the black raincoat draped over it. Sephiroski turned to the young intern again. "Remember what to do?" 

"Yeah, pretend you're Fox, and I'll say you have a sore throat…you grab your buddy and get out of there…." 

"Yes," agreed the Russian. 

"But…don't kill anyone…" said Moretti, looking away. "I've got a feeling that you're numbed to it, and…nobody here's got a way to defend themselves, other than Kyle the security guard…and he's asleep half the time. 

"So…just don't do it." Moretti looked up. The Russian was gone. The door was open. "Ah, shit!" he said under his breath, running out into the hall. 

Sephiroski looked at the sign on the wall outside the lounge. That idiot intern wants me to spare life…evidently, he needs to walk a mile in my moccasins, Sephiroski thought, using the trite American term. 

The sign pointed him to the left. Striding down the corridor, he got confused looks from some hospital orderlies, but was not stopped by anyone. 

Another sign appeared on a crudely made stand. "ER-RIGHT" it said. 

Sephiroski went down the right corridor. His right hand was under the doctor's scrubs and his left was dangling at his side. Sephiroski had used part of his old raincoat to dress the wounds on his left arm. It had stopped hurting a while ago, partially due to the blood clotting up. His torture-resistance training was proving its effectiveness yet again. 

Martha Hollingsworth strolled by the Russian with a large, steaming mug of coffee. Something about this doctor in the hallway didn't look right to her…and she wanted to talk with him about the pornography that he was watching in the lounge. 

"Excuse me, sir…" she said, tapping him on the shoulder. "May I please ask…" 

Sephiroski spun around at the noise. An old hag wanted to ask him something… It's probably about my ID card. He thought. I don't look a thing like Grant Fox. I don't know if I should resort to subterfuge to carve my way through a shorthanded hospital…or perhaps I should honor that intern's request. He decided to fake an American accent to the best of his abilities. 

"What is it, madam?" he said quite convincingly. 

"What were you doing in the nurses' lounge? I heard all kinds of…unpleasant noises coming from there… and I was wondering-" 

Sephiroski had taken this as a sign that he was under suspicion. Under his uniform, he drew his sword and plunged it into the old woman's chest, cutting her off in mid-sentence. 

Martha felt great pain and collapsed on the floor, dead without knowing how or why. Her cup of coffee fell from her hand and shattered. 

"What the hell?" uttered the receptionist, looking towards the source of the noise. 

I guess I've blown my cover…he thought. I guess I'll slay all the infidel pigs here. 

He had his sword in hand, clearly out in view. Sephiroski calmly strode up to the receptionist's desk. "Excuse me, but your elderly nurse has unexpectedly passed away." 

"What?" said the receptionist, standing up. A nimble slash from the Masamune Blade cut her down like a weed, showering fresh gore over the desk. This will be easy… I don't even see signs of a security station or checkpoint…what a low-tech operation. 

A third sign was behind the desk, pointing Sephiroski towards the end of the hallway. Holding his sword out, he strode towards the Emergency Room. An orderly ran out to stop the armed man, only to meet the same fate as the other people who had crossed paths with him tonight. 

Hojovko blinked. Once, twice, then a third time. He ached all over. It was as if his skin was on fire. All at once, memories of the crash came to his mind. Stepping out of his sedan, narrowly missing getting hit by a speeding police cruiser… 

Yes, it was all coming back. The feel of flames on his back, not knowing what was happening, suddenly being propelled into the street…yes, he remembered. 

One face stuck out in his mind. Cloud Strife. That little punk who ruined his plans… if it wasn't for the rookie, he'd be in the sedan with his employer, counting their money. Where is Sephiroski? I need him again…I need Fate to intervene and take me from this place. 

"Dana…" said a voice to his right. "Let's get married." 

"What? You can't be serious, Gary! I'm already married!" said a female voice. 

"I know that…I've got an idea." 

"What would that be?" 

"Kill your husband. I've got to have you…I want to be with you, forever and ever, Dana…can't you see? We were meant for each other!" 

Hojovko felt nauseous. The dialog being played out beside him sounded like it was ripped directly out of an American "Soap Opera". He had seen an episode on television the other day, and it was about as believable as the concept of Democracy. 

"You sick, sick man! Come here!" sounds of suppressed breathing and flesh rubbing on cloth were heard. 

The patient sat on the steel operating table listening to the squalid conversation. 

What sick, unwholesome, adulterous minds these Americans have, he thought. So filthy…what twisted infidels. There will be divine intervention tonight… only in the afterlife will these infidels know their punishment for mortal sins. 

After a round of more kisses, the man spoke up again. "Honestly… I think we should kill your husband. He's just getting in the way." 

"But I don't know if I'm in the will yet." Said the female nurse. 

"We can change that…" chuckled the conspirator. "After the coroner comes in to drag off this stiff, we can go to your house and force your hubby to change the will, then we can kill him, get your money and go to Wutai for the weekend!" 

"How are we going to go about killing Fred? He's big, tall, and strong…unlike you. That's the sad truth, Gary." 

"Oh, so you're comparing me to your husband?" 

"No, no, no! Not at all! You're a far better boyfriend than my husband ever was when we were in high school. You two are incomparable." 

"Yeah, sure." 

Hojovko looked to his right to notice a male doctor putting a shirt on. "You're such a bitch sometimes, it's hard not to ignore that," he said. "I might just go kill your husband for the fun of it." 

"You monster! I should have known you were driven by your narcissism!" 

I hate to tell you this, but you aren't any better off, Hojovko thought to himself with an inaudible chuckle. Directly to his right was a tray of medical instruments. Scanning over them, he saw something that grabbed his attention- a morphine needle. It was all he needed… 

"Shut your trap, Dana! Your mood swings will be the death of me yet." 

Stealthily, Hojovko's hand moved to the morphine needle and clamped it. Yes, this will be my ticket out of here. 

"Gary! You bastard! I thought you loved me!" 

"I guess I was lying." 

"GARY!!!" Dana stood up and grabbed Ferguson tightly in a giant bear hug. "Don't leave me like this…please, Gary…. please…" 

Ross' back was turned to Sephiroski's associate. It's now or never. He suddenly stood and ran up to the nurse, plunging the syringe into the back of her neck, pushing the plunger down all the way. 20ccs of morphine went into her system, causing her to go limp in Ferguson's arms. 

"What the hell!?" he stared at the now-alive Hojovko. "I thought you were dead! You sure as hell looked it." 

"Appearances can be deceiving, comrade." He looked back at the tray for another weapon to use against the narcissistic doctor. Hojovko saw another syringe. However, it was empty… beside it was a bottle of an unnamed liquid. What the hell… The Russian picked them both up and stuck the needle into the paper-thin lid of the bottle and filled up the syringe with a glowing green liquid. 

"You don't know what you're doing! That's-" 

Hojovko approached the doctor. "Are you scared of the syringe's contents, dishrag?" he chuckled. 

The door suddenly opened. A doctor stepped in with green eyes and radiant silver hair. "How many times do I have to tell you? It's DIRTBAG!" 

"I knew that." Said Hojovko, smiling. 

Ferguson turned around. "What's happening here!?" he shrieked. Dana's prone form began to move around and mumble incoherently. 

"You should know, you despicable swine. This is Fate playing out." 

Ferguson looked at the unknown doctor. "Are you Fred?!" he gasped. 

"No, I'm called Mikhail, or Mishka depending on your tastes. I believe you were planning on calling the Coroner to dispose of my comrade here. I don't appreciate that at all. In fact, I believe that if you were to remain alive, we could sue you for malpractice." 

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" 

"Apologies won't save you in the afterlife, infidel." Sephiroski unsheathed his sword from under his uniform again. Ferguson stared at the wet crimson blade in dumbfounded awe. This was Karma, all right… 

Dana started to stand up and flutter her eyelashes. "Wuzzis?" she uttered. 

"Not now." Said Ferguson. "Everything's okay." 

"Ha, ha, ha… that's fuzzy." Said Ross, opening her mouth to its apex and letting her tongue hang out. "You're like a pea…soft and squishy." Her hands clasped Ferguson's right calf and squeezed it. 

"Let GO of me!" he said, kicking out. 

"Should I consider this to be your final moment of love?" said Sephiroski, preparing to swing his blade. 

"No fair! This doesn't count!" 

"Fine… since I'm such a nice person, I'll let you bid goodbye to your snookums." 

"What doesn't count? My hand on a wet lizard across an hourglass?" she moved up to his stomach and began to tickle it. 

"Stop it, Ross…my life is in danger, can't you see?" Ferguson grabbed her hands and moved them away from him. 

"Danger? Ha, ha, ha! You're my special guy person." Said Dana, squealing like a newborn baby. "Just like my dog's anthill's wife's friend." She started to drool. 

"I think you gave her too much morphine." He said to Hojovko. "She's high right now… I mean, high as a fuckin' balloon." 

"I had no reason to kill her." He said. "I just wanted to get her out of the way." 

"…Like I'll need to get you out of the way. You've had more than enough time, doctor. It's time for you to die for your mistakes." Said Sephiroski, swinging his blade at Ferguson's exposed back. 

"Dana! I-" he was cut short when the point of the Masamune Blade came out his chest, spouting blood over Dana's face. Ferguson attempted to talk again, but all that came out of his mouth was more blood. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and clouded over as he fell to the floor. 

Ross smeared the blood all over her face and laughed. "So warm and sticky! It feels like glue in a blender!" She stood up and looked at a mirror. "Ha! I'm all red! I look like an Indian!" Dana broke into an uncontrollable peal of laughter. 

Ignoring this, Sephiroski looked over his associate. "I'm glad they weren't operating, Hojovko." He said. 

"Yes, indeed. I've got a syringe full of this shit. Do you know what it is?" asked Hojovko, placing the syringe full of the green liquid in Sephiroski's hand. 

"I've no idea." 

"Idea…starts with an I and ends with an A! Like Ibarra!" said Dana, skipping across the room. 

"Well, let's not bother ourselves with it. Put it in your pocket and let's get out of here… I left our money in the lounge-" 

Sephiroski was cut short by Moretti, who appeared at the door. "You killed Martha, Grace and Leo! How could you?" he bellowed in rage. "I told you not to kill anyone, didn't I?" 

"Yes, you did. I didn't say I'd honor your request, though…" said Sephiroski, very coolly yet confidently. "Get out of the way or you'll see Martha, Grace, and Leo real soon…" 

"You…" stammered Moretti. Clenching his fists, he ran at the Russian. 

Sephiroski had seen him coming. Laughing, he kicked Moretti in the face and followed through with a punch to the gut with his left hand. "Doctor Ferguson put up a better fight than you did." 

"Fight, fight, in the night, see my tiger burning bright!" said Dana, smearing Gary's blood over the floor with her hands. 

Moretti doubled over with the first punch. "You self-righteous pig…" said Sephiroski, raising the blade up in the air and bringing it down on Moretti's back. The intern writhed for a moment and collapsed on the floor. 

"Is he an Indian, too?" said Dana with interest. 

"Now he is. Come on, Hojovko. We're going to grab our money and get out of here." 

"Fine with me…what should we do with the woman?" his associate responded. 

"Take her with us. She'll be a hostage." 

Hojovko picked her up by the shoulders. "We're going to leave now." 

"Aww, man! I wanna paint some more!" said Dana, pouting. She wiped the excess blood on her shirt. 

"Let's go. Follow the nice doctor there." He said, gesturing to Sephiroski, who grinned in a friendly manner. 

"Okey-dokey." Said Ross, wobbling after the two men. 

Kyle Maddox walked into the hospital lobby to have a nice chat with Grace, the receptionist, who he had been trying to set up a date with. "Hello, Grace!" he said, walking up to the desk. 

How odd, he thought. I don't see her anywhere. It was then that he looked to his left to see Martha Hollingsworth in a pool of her own blood. 

"Holy shit! How did this happen?" howled Kyle, reaching down to Martha's prone body. He turned her over to see a deep gouge in her chest, pink lungs visible through the open wound. 

"Jesus Christ…" he whimpered, cowering against the wall. A wave of nausea swept over him like a tsunami. Crouching the opposite direction from Martha's dead body, he began to heave on the floor. She had been his friend from the moment he was transferred to the hospital for security duty following a tragic event in which he accidentally killed a teenager in a shootout. 

"Kyle…is that you?" wheezed a voice from behind the receptionist's desk. 

It's Grace. Running behind the desk, he was petrified to see his friend laid out on the floor, a slash running diagonally across her torso. Her blood was all over the desk and the wall, she was in a spreading pond of it herself. The outlook looked bleak for her to survive. "What the hell happened here?" cried Kyle, taking her head in his arms. 

Grace looked up, her brown eyes starting to cloud over. "Man….with….doctor's outift….raincoat…sword….killed Martha…green eyes….silver hair very…..handsome……" Her head suddenly dropped back, mouth hanging open. She went limp in Kyle's arms. 

"No…" mumbled Kyle, dropping his friend on the floor. "NO!" God damn it, this is a hospital! People aren't supposed to die in a hospital! He looked down the hall. Nobody was there, apparently the staff was still between shifts. Thinking quickly, he got out his walkie-talkie to radio in to HQ. 

Cid Highwind leaned back in his chair, puffing on an unfiltered cigarette. From the moment Strife told him that the mission was blown, he had smoked at least 10 other cigarettes and was working on an eleventh. 

"Can I get you anything, chief?" asked one of his assistants, patting him on the shoulder. 

"No. Go the hell away!" screamed Highwind. "I ain't in the mood for chitchat! Our operation in Kalm is entirely down the toilet, and our suspect ran off." He slammed his fist on the table, causing the other heads in the room to turn. 

"Are you alright?" asked the aide. "I think-" 

"You're fired!! Get the hell out of my sight!" announced Cid, flailing his arm at the aide. "Take all your stuff with you! If you aren't out of the building by-" 

"This is Maddox, is anyone there?" squawked the CB radio. 

"Shit!" proclaimed Cid. "All this has to happen when I'm talking!" 

"Anyone?" repeated the radio. 

"God damn son of a bitch…" Cid stomped over to his desk and picked up his radio. "Yeah, this is Highwind. What the hell do you want?" 

"This is Maddox-" 

"I fuckin' know that! What's wrong?" 

"There's been a report of a man wearing a doctor's uniform coming in here and slaying two hospital personnel…" 

Maddox looked down the hall beside the desk to see another crumpled figure lying on the floor. 

"Err…make that three." 

"Do you have any descriptions of this man?" asked Cid, becoming very serious all of a sudden. "If there are, I'd like to know them…" 

"Yeah, I do. But since you were so rude to me, I'd like an apology." 

"Jesus Christ, kid! You could single-handedly-" 

Maddox stared to laugh. "I'm just joshin', man. Don't get so uptight." 

"Fucking moron!!" blasted Cid. "TELL ME THE DAMN DESCRIPTION!" He stood up in his chair and screamed directly into the microphone, getting shushed by a few police officers, who monitored their own radio circuits. 

Maddox spoke into the receiver again. "Okay, my recently deceased friend tells me that he has silver hair, green eyes, and a sword… odd if you ask me." He sat down next to Grace's lifeless body. 

"Holy Christ… Where are you again?" said the voice from the other end. 

"I'm at Midgar Community Hospital, we're near Kalm." 

"I've got a couple fresh police cruisers on their way. If this fuck's still in the hospital, I want you to apprehend him using any means possible." 

"Can I kill him out of personal revenge?" said Maddox, taking out his .357 magnum from its shoulder flask. He wasn't supposed to be carrying a gun, but he liked having a piece with him wherever he went. It made him feel powerful. 

"If you're a cop on security duty, I don't think you even have a sidearm…and this guy's as dangerous as a chocobo without its momma, alright? Don't try to beat the hell outta him with your nightstick…" 

"I have ways," said the security guard, pulling the hammer back. 

"Whatever the hell that means…Anyhow, I'm sending out a patrol. Hang tight, and don't let the fucker gut you like a fish." 

Sephiroski could hear muffled voices coming from the lobby down the hall. He could see the orderly's body there on the floor, it hadn't moved from its previous spot. 

"I think the coast's clear from here. Be careful once you round the corner. I think there are survivors." He reported to his accomplice, who gave a nod. 

"I will survive! As long as I know how to love, I'm gonna stay alive…" screeched Dana, waving her arms about. "I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give-" 

"Hojovko, shut her up." Said Sephiroski. 

"Right…" he replied, stomping on her foot. 

"OW! You meanie! You hurt me!" Dana gave the Russian a slap across the face. 

"Damn it! Can I kill her?" growled Hojovko. 

"She's our hostage, remember. Let's go." Sephiroski walked down the hall with the briefcase in his left hand, sword out in his right. 

Maddox heard some talking in the hallway behind him. If it's a member of the hospital's personnel, I'll get them to treat Grace…I bet she's still alive. Foolishly, he exposed his whole body as he stepped out in the corridor. "Who's there?" he cried out. 

He saw a man in a doctor's uniform tread down the hall, a huge curved sword in his right hand, briefcase in the other. He could see the long silver hair and green eyes clear as day. This is our man. Maddox raised his Colt Python and aimed it at him. 

Sephiroski's pace never dawdled until he saw the gun raise. He's going to go hostile on me without even talking? Pity. He threw the briefcase behind him. "Take it, Hojovko." he ordered. Raising his sword in a defensive stance, he rushed at the potential assailant. 

Maddox was in a world all his own. He was the best sharpshooter at the Midgar Police Academy, besting the record set by Zack. The people on duty didn't know this, and he preferred to keep it a secret. He also excelled in close-range combat and infiltration techniques. The only reason why he wasn't on the full-time police force anymore was because of that…unfortunate incident a while ago… 

Returning to the issue at hand, he saw that the man was defending his head and torso area with the sword. In a split-second, he aimed down at the man's legs. This is for Gracie! He proclaimed to himself as he pulled the trigger back. 

The tremendous recoil of the Colt Python propelled the bullet towards Sephiroski's hyper extended leg at 2,000 feet a minute. 

This will be another easy kill, thought Sephiroski milliseconds before the .357 bullet blasted into his kneecap, completely shattering it. The bullet didn't fragment, but it exited out the back of his leg after tearing through the bone like a locust in a wheat field. 

This took him totally by surprise, as he began to tumble and fall across the floor, his sword flying from his grasp, his knee exploding in fire. 

Have another one for the road, shitbag, said Maddox in his mind. He squeezed the trigger a second time. 

Sephiroski was already in incredible pain when the follow-up bullet exploded into his chest, barely missing the aorta and shooting out his back. He hit the cold tile floor face first, his nose crunching against the hard surface. 

In the corner of his eye, he could see his Masamune Blade clatter against the floor, coming to a rest against the wall. He was in incredible pain, more pain than he could hope to resist. Maybe it's my turn to have my fate decided by Karma. He could feel his lifeblood rapidly drain from the multiple wounds inflicted on him…he couldn't move his limbs; he couldn't try to stop the bleeding. All he could do was sit…and wait. 

"No! Sephiroski!" screamed Hojovko, in Russian. "I'm taking the money and meeting you at our safehouse! Be sure to get out safely!" 

Sephiroski moved his head incrementally. That was all that Hojovko needed to know in order to carry out their contingency plan. 

"A safehouse… a safe…. house!" proclaimed Dana. "I want to go there!" 

"I'm afraid you'll stay here for tonight." 

"I wanna go, uncle Hojovko!" 

"Too bad." Hojovko pushed her off of him and started to run down the corridor to his left. The exit was in sight, about 100 feet away… 

I'll bag his associate while I'm at it! Maddox fired the Colt Python again. The bullet screamed past Hojovko's head and imbedded itself in the wall. Maddox looked at the fleeing Russian, awestruck. He had never missed a stationary target in his life. 

"I like truffles!" declared Ross, sprawled out on the floor. 

"Highwind calling all units, please respond, over." Screeched the CB radio in Midgar Police Cruiser #59-Q. 

Officer Michael Riley picked up the receiver. "Ten-four, HQ. What's up?" 

"We've traced the suspect to a hospital in the outskirts of Midgar…where are you?" 

"We just got out of Kalm, and we're heading for Midgar now." 

In the passenger's seat, Cloud Strife looked at Riley with anxiety. He didn't want to face down Sephiroski again. He wanted to forget about what happened that night… 

"I need you to head for Midgar Community Hospital ASAP. We've got another officer there, he could be killed at any moment, comprende?" 

"I hear you," said Riley. The police car passed a sign on the Inter-Continental Freeway: "MIDGAR CITY LIMITS". The dull lights of Midgar could be seen already. "We just got into Midgar, HQ. We're close to the hospital." 

"No…" said Strife. "I don't want to go…" 

"Great. I need you to support Officer Maddox until we can get the SWAT team from our PD over there to exterminate the Russkies." 

Strife snatched the receiver from Riley's hand. "Sergeant! Do you know what that bastard did tonight?" 

Cid was caught by surprise. "Strife? You're with Riley on this? It'd be good for you to sharpen your teeth on this one. That's why you signed up for this mission, no?" 

"You're a real asshole, Highwind." Spat Cloud. "He killed Zack. I saw it with my own two eyes." 

"He wasn't identified on the news as one of the dead." Said Highwind. "For all I knew, you could've been busting out your marijuana again." 

Disgusted, Cloud tugged on the receiver as hard as he could. It came out of CB radio transmitter in a short shower of sparks. Strife threw the receiver out the window. 

"What the hell did you do that for?!" stammered Riley. 

"I hate that man…" mumbled Cloud. 

"We're going to the hospital. Orders are orders. Sorry, man, but I don't wanna get fired, you know." 

"Whatever…" Cloud sank back into the seat and shut his eyes. 

Hojovko ran outside the hospital into the parking lot. Immediately to his left was a parked ambulance; its driver's-side door was open. Excellent, he thought, leaping into the cab. 

He threw the briefcase on the passenger's-side seat and opened the fuse box slightly above the gas and brake pedals. Quickly connecting the two vital fuses, the ambulance roared to life. 

Shutting the door, he reflected on how beneficial his skills as a KGB spook were becoming today. As an undercover KGB agent, he had been assigned to penetrate Russian Mafia warehouses in Moscow. Most missions involved the stealing or theft of company cars containing various contraband, and that was how Hojovko remembered how to hotwire cars. 

In one mission, an attack on an illegal arms cache, he was paired with a crack team of Spetznaz troops, and their leader was Mikhail Sephiroski. Unfortunately, the mission was compromised, which resulted in the deaths of all the team members, save for Sephiroski and Hojovko. 

The two were taken prisoner by the Mob and were pressed into becoming moles from the KGB and Spetznaz… in other words, Mafia informers. Clever as they were, Hojovko and Sephiroski relayed the Mafia's efforts to the government, and the government's actions to the Mafia. 

One night, the two friends coordinated a fake "arms deal" which would inevitably be a showdown between the police and the Mob… and it did. 

The two took over the Crachovko's business of running arms and dealing cocaine and did it well…after resigning from their respective government posts. Since then, they were the unstoppable team of the underworld… 

Until that night, that was. Now his partner and friend was lying in a hospital in a puddle of his own lifeblood with an angry cop on his trail. 

Such times are gone for the time being…although I trust that he'll get out alive. Sephiroski's a crafty fellow. He'll find some way to escape. I know he will. Hojovko backed out of the parking lot and sped down the Intercontinental Freeway. 

Maddox ran out of the hospital just in time to see an ambulance drive off. "Damn." He uttered. "That bastard was so close to getting a bullet through the brainpan." 

"This is your brain! This is your brain on heroin!" Exclaimed Dana 

Ross, stumbling out the door. "Any questions?" she fell on the ground, giggling uncontrollably. 

Kyle looked at Dana and shook his head sadly. 

Just then, Squad Car #59-Q sped into the parking lot, an officer getting out of the driver's side and approaching Maddox. 

"Are you an officer for Midgar, sir?" questioned Riley. 

"Yeah. The Russian's in there bleeding like a slaughtered lamb. I doubt he'll be getting up anytime soon." Maddox pointed at the building with his pistol. 

"Has he had any medical assistance?" 

"Nope. He killed Gracie…he deserves to die like the scum he is." 

Sephiroski tried to drag himself across the floor, over to his trusty Masamune Blade, which was almost within reach. In his mind, suicide by sword was a much more favorable experience than bleeding to death. Almost…got it… 

A nurse came in, presumably from the second shift, to find a grim spectacle before her. Bodies laid every which-way throughout the halls. 

Walking by the receptionist's desk, she looked down the hall to see a man dragging himself across the floor. "Are you alright, sir?" 

The man slumped over, exhausted. 

My lord, he's bleeding everywhere! Thought the nurse. Thinking quickly, she ran into the lobby and grabbed a stretcher, wheeling it over to where the man was heaped on the floor like a pile of bricks. 

"Here, let me help you up!" 

She's strong, thought Sephiroski as he was lifted against his will onto the hospital stretcher. He was laid out on the mobile bed as it was pushed to an empty operating room. 

The nurse was met by some of her friends. "He's already lost a lot of blood. Andrew, get some blood packs." 

"Shouldn't we do a blood test on him?" answered a male voice. 

"He'll probably die before we get the results! Sophie, shoot him with morphine!" 

"Got it." Replied a gruff female voice. 

Sephiroski felt the IV go into his arm as the fluid was pumped at a steady rate into his bloodstream. His pain was swiftly numbed down until his whole body just felt like it was tingling... 

An oxygen mask was fitted across Sephiroski's face. "Just breathe in and relax." Said the gruff female voice. 

Just before he passed out, he heard a policeman come in. "Good job, guys. He's in our custody now." With that encouraging thought, Sephiroski drifted into dreamland. 

Cloud Strife watched the nurses work with precision as they stitched up Sephiroski's wounds. At last, we've caught him. No more Zacks will be slain...no more martyrs for no cause... no more massacres like in this hospital. I didn't have to avenge Zack after all. 

Despite the evidence in front of him, a voice in the back of Cloud's head told him that those were just mere speculations. Sephiroski would walk the streets again... 

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 0.6.7 -->


	3. Chapter 3

1 CHAPTER 3  
  
"...and now a weather report from our weather girl, Siobhan Anders!" announced the radio DJ.  
  
"Sure thing, Todd! Well, today there's gonna be cloudy skies in the morning, with a 50% chance of acid rain. Be sure to wear your asbestos suit when you leave work!"  
  
"Gotcha! Anyhow, here's the latest from the Vlakoradoses-"  
  
Cloud's hand hammered the Snooze button on his clock radio. So far, it was a routine day. He got out of bed wearing nothing but his boxers and strolled into the kitchen for some food.  
  
Opening the cabinet, he retrieved a box of Mako Crisps from the shelf and poured himself a bowl. Retrieving a bottle of Chocobo Milk from the fridge, he lavishly poured it over the Mako-Based cereal. The cereal's gimmick was that it glowed like Mako when milk was poured on. The green glow lit up the kitchen like a lantern.  
  
Cloud walked into his small, sparsely furnished living room and flopped down on the couch. The old, rusted springs creaked loudly but still supported Cloud's weight.  
  
He turned on the TV.  
  
"...Hey there, I'm Ron Popeil!" Cloud mashed the button on his remote control.  
  
The screen changed to a picture of two fishers. "Say, Bubba... I love you." Said the man on the left, idly tapping his fingers on his rod.  
  
Cloud zapped the TV a second time. The image switched to a shot of the exterior of a hospital building.  
  
"We have just gotten word that the infamous criminal mastermind, Mikhail Sephiroski, has just gotten out of his coma, which he has been in for about a year now." Said the news anchor.  
  
Cloud stared at the screen in horror. All the memories flooded back in an avalanche. He remembered the hospital... watching the surgeons operate on the comatose Russian that had killed Zack less than an hour before. Cloud remembered all the pent-up hatred for that man dissolving like an Alka-Seltzer in a bottle of Coca-Cola. The illusion of security was there; Cloud was sure that his nemesis couldn't ever dream of escaping from God's prison: Sleep.  
  
"The hospital authorities are moving Sephiroski to Corel Prison where he will await his hearing, scheduled for next Monday." The scene switched to a live feed of a squadron of police and doctors escorting a man on a wheelchair to a police car. The camera zoomed in on the face of the man in the wheelchair. It all came back to Cloud. Silver hair, bright, green eyes...  
  
A reporter ran up in front of Sephiroski. "Excuse me, sir! Are you optimistic about your hearing?"  
  
The Russian looked up at a police officer, who Cloud immediately recognized to be Sergeant Cid Highwind. Cid nodded his head as approval for something. Sephiroski spoke clearly into the microphone:  
  
"Yes, I am looking forward to it. I hope the judge isn't biased against me like the other judges were..."  
  
Another reporter barked, "Sephiroski! I seem to recall that all the judges in your previous trials granted you guilty verdicts and soon died execution-style deaths."  
  
"No comment." Said Sephiroski. "However, I can say that if Cloud Strife is watching this, he'd better know that I'll be after him soon... and that I enjoyed killing every one of those people in the hospital-"  
  
"That's enough." Said Cid. "He refuses to comment anymore." He was placed inside the police car just as the image cut away to the TV newsroom.  
  
"There you have it, folks. Mikhail Sephiroski is indeed alive. Now for a stock report..."  
  
Cloud threw his bowl of cereal at the TV screen and buried his face in his hands. Why did he have to wake up? Why couldn't he be a vegetable until I retire from the police force? I bet everyone at the P.D.'s gonna be worried about what he said. That animal.  
  
The phone rang beside the sofa. Cloud reached over and picked it up. "Hello?"  
  
"Did you see that, Cloud? My God! That bastard's insane!" It was Cid.  
  
"Where are you calling from?"  
  
"Oh, there's this new thing called car phones...I just plug the piece of shit into the cigarette lighter and I can call you from the car. I'm in the cruiser ahead of the one that Seph's inside. We're heading for Corel now."  
  
"Should I report to HQ today? I feel like taking the day off. I heard that threat against me on TV."  
  
"That wasn't a threat!" laughed Cid. "That was a challenge!"  
  
"You're a pretentious bastard." Growled Cloud. "You're a pompous jackass who doesn't deserve to be on the police force, let alone the sergeant of one."  
  
"Sorry, but the reception on this phone is shit. What did you say?"  
  
"Nothing..." smiled Cloud, wanting to do that for a long time.  
  
"Okay, report to HQ at 8. Regular time."  
  
"Understood." Said Cloud, hanging up.  
  
After cleaning up the mess left from the shattered cereal bowl colliding with the TV, he got dressed and walked into the bathroom. There he made his fashion statement every morning.  
  
Cloud retrieved his hair gel from the medicine cabinet and dumped the entire jar over his scalp. From there, he laboriously slathered the stuff across his head, spiking the locks to look like someone had given him a fierce electrical shock.  
  
He never knew why he did it, but he did. Satisfied, he took his sword in hand--his  
  
new weapon of choice since that fateful night in Kalm a year ago. Strapping it to his back, he opened the door and strolled out into the dank, malodorous hallway, shutting the door after him.  
  
It was a cloudy day, as usual. Cloud ambled out of his Sector 6 apartment out to the street, where a sign on a lamppost announced a stop for the bus. Getting out his bus pass, he waited for his means of transportation to arrive.  
  
Not five minutes later, it came. Lurching to a stop, the bus driver opened the doors to get on.  
  
"Oh, it's you. Put the sword on the rack; you know the rules." The bus driver gestured to the front of the bus.  
  
Cloud strolled over and put the large sword between the two metal slots and slid the lock over them. Snapping it closed, he walked into the bus, depositing his fare into the cash box beside the driver, who sighed as he closed the doors.  
  
"Look! Spike-head don't have his sword any more!" said a man on the back of the bus, who wore a black leather jacket.  
  
One of his friends, a similarly-clad street punk, cracked his knuckles menacingly. "Yeah, let's kick his ass!"  
  
There was another punk with the two of them, he looked exactly like the others with their studded leather, dyed hair and their brass knuckles worn like rings.  
  
Cloud noticed the three thugs in the back of the bus; he paid no attention to them. They appeared to have something else in mind...something far more devious. Cloud took a seat behind a smoking man with a small child. The father wore a factory worker's uniform, standard for all Shinra employees to wear outside their homes.  
  
The thugs walked down the aisle, their eyes fixed on Cloud, who sat in his seat peacefully, looking out the window. The bus accelerated, jerking the passengers back in their seats. The thugs in the aisle stumbled a bit, but kept walking.  
  
A woman noticed what was going on before her, and hoped that nobody pulled a gun... crime was high enough in Midgar as it was. Nobody forgot about the massacre that happened in the outskirts of Midgar a year ago.  
  
The punk in the front of the group stopped beside Cloud's seat and stared at him. "Not so big now without your sword, eh?" he growled. "I've seen you here before. You really look like a wimp without it."  
  
"Leave me alone." Mumbled Cloud, still staring out the window.  
  
Another thug was egged on by this. "Yeah, give us your wallet and we'll let you go... at least, if we feel like it."  
  
Some heads turned at their repartee. It provided them with something else to watch other than the buildings zooming by.  
  
"Why, pray tell, would you need my money?" said Cloud, his gaze unwavering.  
  
The third punk was getting irritated with Cloud's standoffish attitude. "Listen here, scumbag...give us your wallet or I'll snap that skinny-ass arm of yours like a twig."  
  
Cloud turned to face the punks. They were about average-height, with bright pink Mohawks on their scalps. They also wore fearsome-looking brass knuckledusters and studded leather jackets. Cloud reckoned that they would pose a threat, but not much of one...  
  
"I'd like to see you try, cocksuckers." He said.  
  
The front most punk's face transformed into a mask of anger and shock. "What did you call me?" he growled. His companions took fighting stances of their own.  
  
"I called you what you deserved to be called..." said Cloud, balling his right hand into a fist. This was going to be pretty ugly...  
  
"That's it. I've had enough of you." Said the thug who appeared to be in the lead.  
  
"Yeah. NOBODY CALLS US THAT!" said another.  
  
The last punk was too quick for Cloud, taking his fist back and delivering a debilitating sucker punch to the side of his head.  
  
Surprised, Cloud fell against his seat and saw the other passengers tremble in fright, contemplating what would happen.  
  
The two other punks launched themselves at Cloud.  
  
The police officer saw them coming and lifted an arm to block the blows. One of them stuck a hand inside Cloud's coat, searching for a wallet. He came back empty.  
  
It was then that Cloud's adrenalin started to kick in. The punk in the lead leapt on top of Cloud, attempting to punch him again. Strife's left hand shot out and grasped the thug's jaw. With one smooth motion, he shoved the head backwards.  
  
The man fell back against one of his comrades, enraged at how the seemingly puny man before him was able to muster up so much strength. "What the hell?!" he brayed, attracting the attention of the bus driver, who glanced in his rearview mirror.  
  
Oh, crap...not again. Those guys do nothing but start trouble. I bet the fight will be over with as soon as it began. He thought, continuing to drive, noticing the frantic buzzing sounds from passengers wanting to get off, despairingly tugging the "request stop" wire mounted on the wall.  
  
The two sidekicks to the lead thug were in shock and awe at this man who had been able to throw their leader across the aisle.  
  
"Well?" asked Cloud, holding up his hands in a fighting stance.  
  
The other passengers on the bus looked in wonderment. They were merely spectators, but what they were seeing was either magic or a sure sign of "Don't judge a book by its cover" syndrome.  
  
One of the thugs launched himself at Cloud, who was ready for such an attack. He grabbed the punk by his shirt collar and flung him towards the window by his seat. With a sickening crunch, the man's head hit the window, creating a huge crack. The punk drooped over the seat, unconscious. A wound had formed across his forehead, and blood slowly trickled from it.  
  
"Any others?" Cloud stared at the two remaining thugs with smugness.  
  
"You...." groaned the lead thug, sneering. He threw a punch at Cloud, who attempted to block it with his forearm. With a surprisingly loud noise, the sharp edges on the brass knuckleduster cut into Cloud's arm, much to the thug's satisfaction. A few passengers screamed at this sudden development.  
  
Cloud reeled back, holding his arm with pain.  
  
"Not so big now, eh?" said the lead punk. His companion looked at the two of them with an air of uncertainty.  
  
"I'm sure that you'd like to see if you could hit me again, bastard." Said Cloud.  
  
The thug growled again and lunged.  
  
Cloud saw his chance. He grabbed the second punk by his shirt and spun him so he was situated between him and the lead thug.  
  
"What...?" grunted the thug that Cloud held.  
  
Strife put the man in a headlock and tilted his head backwards. "One false move and I'll break this kid's neck."  
  
"Kid? You couldn't be more than 20 years old!" said the lead thug, eyeing Cloud's features with scrutiny. Both his hands were balled into fists, ready to strike at a moment's notice.  
  
"I take it you don't respect this man's life..." said Cloud with a touch of sarcasm.  
  
"Let go of me!" said the punk in the headlock.  
  
"I don't respect nobody!" growled his senior. "I only respect those that are better'n me, and this guy don't got the skills."  
  
"Fine." Said Cloud, suddenly twisting the punk's neck to the side, hearing the satisfying pop emanating from the thick sinews.  
  
His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell over lifeless. A passenger yelled out and fainted at this.  
  
"What the hell? You killed him!" groaned the lead thug. "Get away!"  
  
The bus driver peered back in his mirror to see a man crumple, totally inert. It was then that he realized what exactly was going on in the back of the bus. He had to stop the melee before it developed any further.  
  
His foot slammed against the brake pedal. Passengers on the bus were jarred forward by the sudden stop.  
  
A grunt sounded from the remaining punk as inertia flung him backwards, down the aisle. Cloud used the forward motion to his advantage, propelling his body into the punk's, headfirst.  
  
The thug gasped as Cloud's head hit his upper torso, with a blast of unexpected pain. His body hit the floor, a wide hole in his chest. Bystanders stared in wide-eyed shock at the thug, who was obviously dead.  
  
Cloud was surprised by this just as much as anyone else. As the bus stopped moving, he regained his balance and rubbed his scalp. His hand was smeared red.  
  
He knew why.  
  
The bus driver ran down the aisle and glanced at the body, then at Cloud.  
  
"You okay, man?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, I guess I used too much hair gel..." he said, looking once more at the remains of his harasser. "The spike is my fashion statement, and mine alone."  
  
The driver stood dumbfounded as Cloud pushed open the doors to the bus and walked to the front, retrieving his sword. He decided to walk the half-mile to police HQ. In the back of his mind, he thought that that was a lot of action in one day, even for a police officer. However, it was to be the start of something truly awful...  
  
The six men met in the bathroom of the train station, all clad in their Shinra factory worker uniforms. There was one man in the front of the group with a large bristly mustache and a long, skinny face. His cheekbones jutted out as if they were broken. This man's name was Patrick Calhoun, and he was sick of Shinra.  
  
His friends were in front of him, willing to go along with his wild plan, which involved hijacking a train and kidnapping President Shinra. The concept was plausible enough, but the fact that they had all cut work today made them slightly suspicious, as Shinra kept a list of all truant workers that they could check on periodically. Hopefully, nobody on the train would have a list.  
  
"So when are we heading out?" asked another man in front. His name was Heath Franks, and he was around 50 years of age, having gleefully joined up with Calhoun's group to end Shinra's oppression.  
  
"We're going as soon as the train arrives. We will blend in and look like security guards, since the uniforms of the guards and the uniforms of the factory workers such as us look almost identical." Said Quentin Worley, adjusting his glasses.  
  
"Thank you, Quentin." Said Calhoun. "Allow me to elaborate:  
  
"We will follow President Shinra's escort very closely. When they get on the train, we will take security posts. I believe that there are enough people here to take a car each. As soon as the train is away from the station, we will spring into action and overpower the guards.  
  
"Hopefully, they won't put up a fight, lest we might have to resort to bloodshed to commandeer the train." Calhoun was pacing in front of the group with a general's stature, eyeing everyone before him.  
  
"Does everyone have his sidearm functional?" he asked.  
  
The man who had gotten them their arms responded. "Yeah, I made sure we all cleaned them last night while you were here scopin' out the opposition." Derek Moran grinned a fiendish grin as he twirled his pistol, a mean looking nickel-plated .38.  
  
"And do you have mine?" asked Calhoun, his hand outstretched.  
  
"Sure thing, chief. A Mak-10, just as the doctor ordered." Moran produced an Eastern Bloc machine pistol from his bag, placing it in his leader's hand barrel-first.  
  
"Got mine?" said another follower, Barry Zimmerman, an all-around average looking man with a mop of blond hair and brown eyes.  
  
"Yeah," said Moran, opening another pocket in his bag and taking out an AKMS rifle, a modified version of the venerable AK-47. He held it barrel- up. "Good luck trying to conceal this baby in your piddly-ass disguise." He said slyly.  
  
"Ugh," grunted Zimmerman. "Can you keep it in your bag?"  
  
"Okay, pal." He laughed, putting it back in.  
  
"Is mine in there?" asked Chris Contreras, a muscular man with a fierce-looking face and a decidedly gangster-like demeanor.  
  
"You were the only one to ask for a knife." Said Moran, taking out an 11" hunting knife with a ragged, serrated edge. He handed it over, blade pointing down. Chris took it.  
  
"Ask and you shall receive..." he mumbled, swinging the knife at the air. He pivoted his arm to the side, and suddenly took a mighty swing at Moran's exposed neck.  
  
Moran screamed as the blade stopped inches away from his neck. "What the hell was that for!?" he wailed.  
  
"Just to test your reflexes... the knife is pretty damn good, not too light, but enough so I can swing it freely yet feel powerful." Contreras stuck the blade in his belt and tucked his shirt over it.  
  
"Whatever..." said Calhoun.  
  
The last man spoke up. "Might you have my weapon?" he was Bill Yamamoto, the quietist man on the team. Most people who saw him suspected something deeper inside, but he was not open about his true personality.  
  
"I've got it, Bill." Said Moran, taking the last weapon out of his satchel. He tossed over an odd-looking assault rifle. "It was hard getting that." He said. "They never told me what it was called, I just knew what it looked like."  
  
"It's made by a company called Steyr, technically its still in development. I have a close friend who let me use his when we went out to the shooting range a few months ago. It's really light and durable, doesn't recoil much. It's pretty thin, and the stock folds. I can probably stick it in my pant leg and nobody would notice." Said Bill, examining his new gun. "This feels like my friend's. That's good."  
  
"What's it called?" asked Moran, curiously.  
  
"Aug." was his monosyllabic reply.  
  
"We've got this issue taken care of...now we have the issue of who does what task." Said Calhoun. "Personally, I'd take the front car and overpower the engineers there. From there I can stop the train in a secluded place such as a tunnel or on a bridge. If we do that successfully, we won't run the risk of getting derailed by a police attack.  
  
"As most of you are aware, Midgar has an exceptionally good SWAT team, led by no other than Cid Highwind himself, who also happens to be the commander of the undercover police division." Lectured Calhoun.  
  
"Sir, I thought that Cid led the entire police force." Said Zimmerman.  
  
"Not so. Cid is just a figurehead who appears to do press releases, speeches, and whatnot. No, the real head of the P.D. would be President Shinra himself. See, all of Shinra's funds literally power the entire city by making the giant Mako reactors that do so, and the funds also pay the factory workers such as us who toil away at those power plants, at assembly buildings, and everything else related to Shinra.  
  
"In exchange for funding of the P.D., Cid decided to let President Shinra lead it, although Shinra gets little to no powers in his position. However, he is the last authority when it comes to coordinated raids on drug running operations, or strikes on the Mafia, which brings me to my next point:  
  
"One of my close friends is in jail now, after coming out of a coma for about one year... he's mighty pissed, from what my phone conversation with him revealed. See, he gave us a little assignment for him. Our original plan to kidnap President Shinra is still going to happen, but instead of our demands for a better working environment, we are to demand his release."  
  
The five other men were utterly shocked by all this.  
  
"What...?" stammered Franks, his face melded into an expression of pure shock and distrust for Calhoun upon hearing the announcement. "That was our original ideal, wasn't it? Our constant requests to increase our wages and sanitize the factories and power plants didn't work, so we had to resort to this, remember?"  
  
"Yes, I remember..." said Calhoun.  
  
"Are you forsaking all our original goals?" said Heath, frowning.  
  
"We don't have to include Sephiroski's release in our demands solely. We can also include those, I suppose that Shinra would pay anything to release its dictator."  
  
"Still... why strive to free a man we don't know?" said Yamamoto.  
  
"Because," said Calhoun, smirking, "He will dearly reward us when we kill President Shinra and he is freed. We will become part of Sephiroski's crime syndicate. We will all get the pay we deserve, and we get to do something fun for a change."  
  
"Fun?" said Worley. "Crime is fun? I only joined up with you because I could get a better house, and not have to be on welfare because I gamble every so often..."  
  
"Gambling is a legalized crime." Said Contreras, showing some acumen for once. "See? Every man has his vice. But one thing... if we were to kill Shinra, why don't we just do it Mob-style and cap him once in the head and run like hell?"  
  
"Well, that won't free Sephiroski, would it? After all, once they release Sephiroski and he is at a disclosed location that I will name to the police after we establish contact with one another, we will kill Shinra and toss his body off the train."  
  
"What? Surely this can't be true!" said Zimmerman. "I don't wanna kill anyone."  
  
"You've certainly got the right gun for the job," said Moran. "Personally, I think you're kind of being a hypocrite about this."  
  
"Sorry..." said Zimmerman. "But I don't want to kill him."  
  
"Then one of us gladly will." Said Calhoun. "Each of us has our own motives against Shinra, surely developed over time to extreme hatred."  
  
"I'd put a cap in Shinra's skull." Said Franks. "But I don't want to work with a crime syndicate."  
  
"You don't have to reap the rewards, you can always go back to a white-collar life after we finish this job, albeit you will have to relocate to another town..." Said Calhoun.  
  
"Har, har." Said Heath, with abundant sarcasm. "Well, I'm not the patient type. When's Shinra supposed to arrive here?"  
  
Calhoun looked at his watch. "I'd say in about 5 minutes, max."  
  
"Alright." Said Contreras. "I can wait. After all, the anticipation of having something is sometimes more fun-"  
  
"Oh, put a sock in it, Chris." Said Zimmerman.  
  
Cloud arrived at Police HQ in downtown Midgar. The scene was alive with activity. Cars zoomed by every which-way; pedestrians swarmed the sidewalks like ants.  
  
A huge marquee by the police station announced the presentations of the famous, top-grossing play "Loveless", which had won numerous Tony awards and the Pulitzer Prize for best play... of course, everyone had seen it yet didn't mind watching it over and over again... it was almost like mind control, Cloud remarked with a grin.  
  
Cloud crossed the main road in front of the police station and entered into the main lobby. The receptionist greeted him with a wide, saccharine smile.  
  
"Good morning, Officer Strife." Said Jessie, the receptionist.  
  
"Hey, Jess. Any messages?"  
  
"Yeah, you have a message from a Mr. Patrick Calhoun."  
  
"Thanks." Cloud retrieved the mysterious-looking letter. "Did this come in the mail?" he asked, tearing open the envelope.  
  
"Yeah, I got it this morning. Who's Patrick Calhoun, anyway?"  
  
Cloud took out a crudely written note from the envelope. "I'm not sure." He said, and began to read:  
  
"Hello, Cloud. You don't know me, but I know you. You probably know my very good friend, Mikhail Sephiroski."  
  
Cloud froze. Evidently this guy had information or he was making a threat...  
  
"Are you okay, Officer Strife?" said Jessie.  
  
"I'm fine." Cloud kept reading.  
  
"When he was transferred to prison this morning, he chose to call me for his obligatory 'one phone call'. In our 10-minute conversation, he told me about what happened to him that night in Kalm, and how you assisted in apprehending him. He said that the last thing he remembered before drifting into his coma was that you were standing in the room, smiling.  
  
"He remembered that smile for one year, Cloud. That smile haunted him for the entirety of his coma. All he saw was your smug face, happy because he was unconscious and bleeding on a hospital bed. Yes, he's out now and supposedly intends to escape from Corel Prison.  
  
"As for me, I've got plans of my own involving your REAL police chief. I am dropping this letter off at the front desk with your lovely secretary, as I am going to my meeting point. By now, you must know my name. I trust we'll be seeing each other later on today. Until then, friend."  
  
Cloud felt sick. First the punks on the bus attacked him, and then he got this sickening letter. Something in the back of his mind told him to follow up with the 'plans' that Calhoun had mentioned in the letter.  
  
"What was that?" inquired Jessie, staring into Cloud's eyes.  
  
"Something big." Said Cloud. "Thanks for the letter... did you see the man personally drop it off?"  
  
"Yeah, he personally handed it to me and told me his name. Did you read the part about the 'lovely secretary'?" she asked, before realizing that what she had just said was incredibly stupid and unprofessional.  
  
"You read the letter, eh? You did a remarkable job of re-sealing the envelope."  
  
"I guess I did," she said timidly, hanging her head.  
  
"Relax, I won't tell anyone." Said Cloud.  
  
Jessie's eyes lit up. "Really? You're the best, Cloud!" She ran up to him and embraced him. "That could have gotten me fired, you know..." she spoke into his shirt.  
  
Strife was taken aback by this, but he hesitatingly hugged her back. "No problem, just get back to work or else people will stare."  
  
"Right." Said Jessie, with a hint of disappointment. She walked behind her desk again and went through some folders.  
  
The police officer walked down the hallway towards the elevators, looking at the envelope with an amalgamation of curiosity and anger. Why would someone take the time to send him a letter explaining what Sephiroski thought of him? Was it part of a larger plan? Some bigger scheme?  
  
Cloud punched the button, and an elevator immediately dinged its arrival, the doors opening. He walked in, still examining the letter.  
  
"Hold the door for me, Strife." Said a voice that Cloud immediately recognized. He put his thumb on the "DOOR OPEN" button on the control panel. Sergeant Cid stepped into the elevator.  
  
"Good morning, officer. Have a pleasant night?" he asked, far more chipper than his normal cranky self. Cloud didn't look up from the letter.  
  
"Spit it out, Highwind. I know you're hiding something from me."  
  
Cid scowled and pushed the button, which sent them up to the 69th floor. "You've got a sixth sense, kid. I guess that night in Kalm last year kinda sent you a message."  
  
"Most horrible thing that ever happened to me. What do you want me to do? Whenever you're nice you want me to do you a favor."  
  
"I didn't tell you this over the phone, but we found a bomb in our lobby last night." Said Cid, looking at Cloud. "It was found by Ed the night guard. We called our bomb techs to come over and look at it. It's plastic explosive, kid. C4. The detonator's still active."  
  
Cloud found all this hard to swallow at once. "What did the techs find with their analysis?"  
  
"Apparently, there was a break-in at Midgar's military armory. There were some assault rifles, some pistols, and a ton of plastique stolen. Nobody forcefully broke into the armory, but signs point to someone... at the top...who may have been behind the heist."  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"The C4 has been traced to that armory."  
  
Cloud groaned. "Are you saying that someone wanted to blow up this building?"  
  
Cid continued. "We swept the building and found no other bombs, but this break-in might be a sign that terrorist activities are spreading again."  
  
Strife looked at his note at the same time the elevator doors hissed open. The two men walked out, down the hall towards Cid's office. "Sir, take a look at this note I got this morning."  
  
The sergeant gave the note a punctual scan and handed it back to Cloud. "I've had a copy of this note in my possession since last night. Jessie took the liberty of looking at it and xeroxing it."  
  
"Fuh?" babbled the bewildered Cloud. "So much for privacy..." They reached Cid's office and opened the door.  
  
"'Privacy' is not in our vocabulary on the police force, Strife. Have a seat over there... once your partner comes, I'll-"  
  
"Partner? Wait a sec..."  
  
"Well, I kind of blew it on that one, didn't I? Yes, you have an assignment." Cid shut the door and walked behind his desk.  
  
Cloud shifted in his seat. "Does it have to do with that note, or the stolen shipment?"  
  
"Both, actually," said Cid, crossing his arms and leaning back. "In part of that note, it mentioned plans involving our "real police chief". Now, the man who funds the police department is President Shinra. Coincidentally, he is going off to a conference in Junon by train today. This, we speculate, is this group's target, mentioned in the note."  
  
"How do you know it's a group?"  
  
"One man can't overtake a train, fool. I believe that this group is a small division of Shinra labor workers, as six men working at Mako Reactor #2 are missing. Shinra supervisors have reported this same group demonstrating during lunch breaks and getting others to join up with them.  
  
"I feel that they are connected to someone who knows President Shinra very well, one of his top advisors.  
  
"Wow... is that my assignment, to investigate that?" Cloud crossed his fingers behind the office chair.  
  
"No, as much as that may have been a relief for you... it's not the case."  
  
"Shit..." uttered Cloud under his breath, audible to nobody but himself. He stirred some more, and looked at his boss, hoping that he wouldn't have to come face-to-face with Sephiroski again.  
  
"Yes," Said Cid, pacing around the room. "Your task is to be far more tricky than what you mentioned to me... Since I first got that letter, I knew that the Shinra employees would do something of that magnitude. Unfortunately, time is of the essence here, and your partner seems to be late, as usual."  
  
Cloud had a feeling that he knew who his partner was going to be. "No, please... I'm more accustomed to one-man missions. I think that-"  
  
"You're not entailing that you don't value your assignment as much as you value your status as a one-man unit? Strife, this is a perfect opportunity to hone your skills. Everyone on the force thinks that you can't work with a partner."  
  
Of course, this was typical B.S. made by Cid, but Cloud got the point. "Okay, fine... who's my partner?"  
  
Out of the blue, the door to Cid's office opened. Cloud whirled around to see who was at the door. "Oh, what perfect timing. Do come in, officer Wallace."  
  
Strife stared into the face of a mammoth black man who was about 2 heads taller than Cloud was. His dark brown, piggish eyes looked into Cloud's, his face sculpted into an expression of extreme interest. Wallace walked into the room and stood at attention. Cloud noted that the man's body was incredibly muscular and wide.  
  
The thing that distracted Cloud the most was the Wallace's right arm. The hand was missing, in its place was an undersized rotary gun, appearing to be seamlessly bound to his arm. An artificial graft, perhaps? Cloud had seen this man before, and he was fairly popular amongst his peers. During breaks and after work, Cloud would see Wallace socializing with two other policemen, Officers Biggs and Wedge. The two of them were feeble beat cops, yet they seemed to be strangely fond of Wallace.  
  
"Sir, I regret the fact that I was late." Said Wallace, his voice showing a degree of maturity that Cloud had only found in few men. Why he had bothered to notice this he was not entirely sure, except that he was in absolute envy of this man....  
  
"No problem at all, Barret. No problem at all." Said Cid, grinning. "I do expect that you have been briefed on this..."  
  
"Actually, I was in the middle of cleanin' my gun-arm when I get a call from your sorry ass tellin' me that I gotta report to work early! So I goes 'What the hell' and I haul my ass over here... Shit, I don't know why I bothered." Barret raised up the arm with the prosthetic "limb" on it.  
  
Cloud said nothing, he just watched Barret. Wallace was unaware of Cloud's presence; at least he didn't show it.  
  
"I suppose I need to tell you what I have planned...it isn't quite what you had in mind, I'd presume." Said Cid, sitting down.  
  
"Ok... cut the crap, man. Gimme my job." Said Barret. He flicked one of his fingers against the metal barrel of his gun, making a TEENG noise that reverberated around the room.  
  
"I presume you got the note this morning when you came to work." Said Cid. "We put a copy on our bulletin board, as well as by all the places people meet here."  
  
Cloud rolled his eyes.  
  
"Yes, I saw it... and I saw that Sephiroski guy on TV this morning. What the hell's it got to do wit' me?" Barret began to grow irritated as he tapped his toe. Cloud's eyes drifted downwards as he saw the man's monstrous boot move up and down.  
  
I pray to God that he doesn't have a steel toe... thought Cloud.  
  
"Look behind you, Wallace." Said Cid. Barret's gaze met Cloud. For an instant, the two men's eyes met. Neither one of them did anything that would make a bad impression on the other. "This is Officer Strife."  
  
"Yeah, I know of you. You fucked up the job in Kalm. It's a real pleasure to meecha. I'm Barret Wallace." Said the black man, extending a hand.  
  
"So I gathered." uttered Cloud, shaking the hand. It was monolithic in size, it appeared to completely engulf Cloud's in its grasp.  
  
"You two will be partners on this aforesaid job here." Cid smirked and crossed his arms across his chest. "Need I tell you what you will do?"  
  
"Damn right, you should. I have a daughter, ya know... it's kinda hard for her to be making her own breakfast every day." Said Barret, a look of contempt forming in his features. "For once, I'd like to make her a big- ass plate of pancakes-"  
  
"How old is Marlene? Last time I saw her, she was 6, I believe." Cid actually showed some form of empathy for Wallace and his lifestyle.  
  
"She just turned 7 last month. Of course, with the schedule I have to work on, I wasn't there at her birthday party... I just left her present by her bed before she woke up."  
  
Cloud attempted to make conversation with the giant. "What's the wife doing?"  
  
"Hah, the bitch left me for some German guy with 15 inch biceps. What's it to you, honky?" Barret scornfully stared at Strife. "Hell, she's probably dead by now... not like I care or anything-" Wallace's left fist tightened as the knuckles appeared white.  
  
"Guys, enough. You are on a clock. You have BEEN on a clock since this morning. Shall I officially brief you on your assignment or should I dump you off at the train station with a pocketknife and a pack of gum and see what develops?"  
  
"Clock? What the hell?" Wallace looked at his superior once again.  
  
"Train station?" blurted Cloud.  
  
"Oops...spoke too soon. Character flaw of mine." Cid straightened his posture.  
  
"Whatever, Mr. Universe." Growled Barret.  
  
Sergeant Highwind's eyebrows arched with amusement. "Care to repeat that one, Mr. Wallace? Officer Strife here is bound to be impressed by your rapier wit."  
  
"My ass. Just give us the goddamn assignment!" Barret's massive fist slammed against the wooden tabletop of Cid's desk with a booming THUD. Some framed photos, a stapler and Cid jumped up all at once. Cloud reeled in his seat with fright.  
  
"Right..." groaned Cid, maintaining his composure. "Anyhow, your assignment is relatively simple. You and Officer Strife are to be deposited at the Sector 4 train station. There you will purchase tickets separately and board the train. As you should know, our honorable President Shinra is on a trip to Junon by train for a meeting with the mayor. Both of you will take seats closest to the Presidential Car. There will be armed guards at the entrance. If you see any suspicious activity, investigate it at once.  
  
"By any chance if you come across any of the stolen weapons- you will know what they are because you will receive a list with all the weapons' serial numbers on it- report to an armed guard posthaste. All of them have the power to seize control of the entire train and search everyone and anyone on board.  
  
"Wallace, don't use that gun of yours. In fact, such an act is discouraged. Before starting off, you should dis-attach your arm. You can cover as an amputee, I suppose. It's a viable identity. Remember, there are no weapons of any kind allowed on board Midgar trains, much less one with the President on board, so don't even THINK about trying to be a hero."  
  
"Fuck that!" said Barret, with a laugh. "From the looks of it, you're placing top priority on this mission! I don't believe that for one fucking second-"  
  
"Look." Said Cid, his face a mask of fury. "These bastards are ROOKIES! Look at how they handled delivering Strife his letter. It's like they wanted you to come."  
  
"Maybe they did." Said Cloud, resting his hands behind his head.  
  
"Care to explain that, Strife?" said the police sergeant.  
  
"Doesn't it seem too coincidental that Calhoun or whatever his name is decided to drop off the note HERE and announce his intention clear as day?"  
  
Wallace grinned. "Hey, yeah! Man, I never knew you'd be smart!"  
  
Cid rolled his eyes. "However you look at it, the guys are dumbass rookies looking to get themselves killed. Where was I?"  
  
"Uhh.... Don't be a hero?" spoke Cloud.  
  
"Yes. DON'T BE A HERO. That is something that you should remember when you have the urge to take 'em all on at once. Is that understood?"  
  
"You're contradicting yourself, Highwind. Just a second ago you said that they were all rookies, so what's stopping us from slaughtering them?" Cloud stated fearlessly.  
  
Cid swallowed hard. "Listen, I can take that as insubordination and have you kicked off the police force."  
  
"Suck my-" Barret began to say.  
  
"Fine, just don't expect us to do EXACTLY as you say...SIR." Cloud spat.  
  
All Highwind could do was stare. "Get ready." He mumbled. The two officers grudgingly obliged, opening the door and leaving the office.  
  
President Shinra slicked back his balding hair, smiling to himself as he looked out the window of his limousine. "Almost there, Gary?" he asked to his chauffeur.  
  
"Yes, sir... by the way, the name's Jerry." Said the young man in the front seat, always honored to serve, but befuddled by Shinra's clumsiness with names.  
  
"Good, good." Shinra stared out the window, watching the metropolis of Midgar sprawl out in front of him. The limo was speeding down the Intercontinental Freeway that went through the heart of Midgar and directly passed Shinra Headquarters. There was a special lane for government members, which was in the center of the freeway, completely bypassing all the early morning traffic.  
  
The punishment for a civilian using the GOV Lane, as it was called, was instant revocation of the offender's driver's license and a 5-year prison term. The traffic was abysmal in Midgar, some traffic jams had been known to last for days on end. People were so desperate to sidestep all the congestion in the morning and afternoon that illegal usage of the GOV lane was rising. The situation was not always monitored by Shinra personnel, as the only way to tell if an unidentified car was using the GOV lane was to manually access the road's monitoring system and check to see if there was anyone in the lane. Then whoever wanted to know of an unknown car would scan for an ID and check it. If the driver was clever enough to not even have an ID in the first place, then he still faced a 3-year prison sentence on top of the fact that he was abusing the GOV lane.  
  
Needless to say, the Midgar minimum-security facility for small offenders of the law was swiftly filled, and all constant flow of miscreants never failed to peter out. The new criminals were temporarily funneled over to Corel Prison, with all the murderers, drug dealers, rapists, bank robbers, and the like... the kind who deserved to die. The petty criminals were put in with the serial killers, and the death toll mounted. The meek businessmen who took a chance and decided to circumvent the law were either killed in the harsh heat of the prison or by their cellmate.  
  
Shinra's prison system soon came under scrutiny. All the liberal organizations, equal rights groups, and schoolchildren came out to protest the sudden move of petty criminals to a much harsher environment. Shinra caved in and promised to build another minimum-security penitentiary.  
  
The limousine passed the new prison's construction site. Progress was slow, as usual. President Shinra scowled. The last time he had come by to survey the work, the building looked exactly like it did today. A few I-Beams sticking out of a poorly done foundation. The workers were starting to grow disinterested with their line of work, they all complained about their "poor working conditions".  
  
"Gary, can you remind me to call Fred Stone about the prison? He's the architect in charge of the operation-"  
  
"You don't have to remind me, sir. I'll just write it on your calendar...." Jerry's eyes moved to the black mass in front of them. It was a pickup truck, with a small man kneeling in the bed. It was only going about 20 miles an hour, far below the 50 mile per hour speed limit. To top it off, it was a civilian. "Sir, isn't it illegal to use the GOV lane?"  
  
Shinra looked at his chauffeur. "Of course, Gary! You know better." His eyes, too, saw the truck, which now appeared to be stopping in front of them. This presented a problem because the GOV lane was only wide enough for one car, one of the reasons why the ordinance was enacted in the first place.  
  
"Ah, shit. It's stopping. What do we do, sir?" asked the young man, no older than 18 years of age. He moved his lower lip over his upper lip and bit down.  
  
"Get as close as you can. They might get the message."  
  
"Okay. Whatever." Jerry maneuvered the limousine close to the truck and stopped it. The two men could see the man's face, smiling. He reached for something behind him.  
  
"A gun!!" yelled Jerry. "Get down!" He grabbed Shinra by the collar.  
  
"Let go of me, Gary. We have bulletproof windows. There's no need to worry."  
  
"They could have a grenade!"  
  
"You worry too much," scowled Shinra  
  
"He could have a rocket launcher! Or an RPG! A can of napalm! A Molotov-"  
  
"Quiet, Gary. Let's just watch him."  
  
The man had no weapon. He had a sign. With a toothy grin, he showed it to the two men in the limousine.  
  
"My...God..." groaned Shinra. "Not another one!"  
  
Jerry and President Shinra read the sign: FUCK OFF SHINRA. Jerry was outraged. "I'll have their heads!"  
  
"Gary! Don't!" Shinra feebly tried to hold him back. He was far too fast to restrain. Opening the door, Jerry ran out towards the truck. Unfortunately for him, the man in the bed had a bottle of beer with him, which he didn't hesitate to throw. The bottle sailed through the air, flew past Jerry's head and over the railing into another man's car.  
  
With a hearty, drunken laugh, the truck sped off and exited the GOV lane, going into Sector 6. Jerry stood on the road and fumed for a second, then went back into Shinra's limo.  
  
"I didn't get the license plate, sir." Said Jerry, accelerating the car. "I know that they went into Sector 6, and that-"  
  
"I could care less, son. Now take me to the train station, I need to be there at 9:00 sharp. Make it snappy!" commanded Shinra.  
  
"Yes, sir..." grumbled his chauffeur, speeding up.  
  
Calhoun flipped a page in his newspaper. He sat on a bench in the train station with a clear view of the front, where the cars came in. Peeking to his left, he saw Worley appearing to talk on the telephone in the booth. A skilled actor, that kid was. He'd be great on Broadway some day...  
  
"Yo," said Contreras, bumping into him. "We've got the people in the bathroom, and I think that Shinra's escort's gonna be in here real soon."  
  
Patrick smiled. "Superb. Who did you select?"  
  
Chris sat down next to Calhoun on the bench. "Yamamoto and Zimmerman. They'll have the best chance of finding a guy who's their size," he said professionally. "Franks and Moran will lure the men into the bathroom."  
  
"How?"  
  
"They'll pretend that they're drunk."  
  
"Good idea. Those Shinra scumbags are willing to arrest anyone, no matter what the cause... so what if one man comes in instead of two?"  
  
"Shinra works in groups. We're anticipating two or three of 'em. If there's one, like you say, we'll just have one less disguise."  
  
"Thank you, Chris. I can always count on you." Calhoun grinned warmly.  
  
"Just keep that in mind when you pay us. By the way, I think I see Shinra coming up the drive right now... It's show time, pal." Chris stood up and looked towards the bathroom, seeing Franks and Moran leaning beside the door. He gave the signal- a loud cough followed by a retch.  
  
Sure enough, President Shinra's limousine drove up in front of the station, and a small flotilla of bodyguards went out to escort him.  
  
"Step this way, sir," stated one of Shinra's bodyguards, with absolutely no emotion on his face. He took Shinra by his arm and gently hoisted him outwards.  
  
"I don't really need so much care-" he began.  
  
"Sir, we have our duties." Said a second bodyguard.  
  
Shinra grumbled to himself. "Goodbye, Gary. You were a good chauffeur."  
  
"Jerry." He grunted.  
  
The platoon flanked Shinra as they advanced towards the train. "Sir, the car is ready, and you will be served breakfast on board. There will be other guards on the train, so you are absolutely not going to be bothered." Announced the lead bodyguard in front.  
  
"Good, I thought you were slacking off!"  
  
Derek Moran took a swig of the liquid in his pocket flask. To the guards, it would be beer, vodka, brandy, scotch, whiskey, or any other alcoholic beverage, which was NOT ALLOWED in the station. In reality, the liquid was castor oil, a substance that would cause almost instant vomiting from the person who consumes it.  
  
Heath Franks did the same, and the two men staggered towards the group of bodyguards with a convincing stagger.  
  
"...As you see, sir, this train is the top-of-the-line Shinra SM-29 model, complete with automatic brakes, an automated locomotive, and best of all, a security checkpoint in every car." Said the lead bodyguard.  
  
"I remember supervising its construction," the President said blankly.  
  
"Yes, well... we have upgraded the security systems on-board so all the security personnel have to pass through an optical scan before entering the train. This would prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the Presidential Car or the locomotive area to access the manual control."  
  
"Well, I certainly didn't expect that much of an overhaul on the design."  
  
"In addition, there is a metal detector at the entrance of a car, just in case we have any terrorists aboard who like to stash their weapons. We also have a team of drug and bomb-sniffing dogs patrol the entire train at each and every stop."  
  
"You certainly spared no expense for my safety, mister...ah, blast it. I forgot your name. Nonetheless, you deserve a promotion."  
  
"No, the pleasure is mine. You can call me Graham, but my first name is Ian. Despicable name, if you ask me."  
  
"I hate the name 'Shinra' just as much." The President and his team were now passing through the square, within earshot of the two men posing as drunks.  
  
"You don't know how much I agree with that," hissed Franks as he approached the closest guard in the formation.  
  
Moran fell against the bodyguard in the back of the formation. "Hey! I look nice today!!" he wailed in a drunken voice.  
  
"Get off me, vagrant!" growled the guard seconds before Moran vomited all over his pant leg. He staggered back and glared at the offender.  
  
Franks grasped another guard's boot and retched on the floor in front of him. This bodyguard kicked at Heath's face, kitting the bridge of the nose with the toe. Luckily, the bone didn't shatter and kill Franks, but the nose was broken. Blood discharged onto the tile floor, combining with the vomit and at the same time filling in the cracks in the flawed flooring. The elder insurgent rolled over on his back and held his nose as blood continued to spill over his face.  
  
Moran stared in rage. That was clearly against Shinra's policy. "Bitch!!" he bellowed, tacking Heath's assailant. The guard was taken totally by surprise as Derek's weight slammed into him. The two tumbled into a bench, which just happened to be the bench that Calhoun was sitting on, totally aware of the situation and totally enraged at his accomplices' incompetence. He knew he had to step in.  
  
As the men hit the bench and started to scuffle, Calhoun stood up and pulled Moran off the guard. "Rabble! You should learn better than to assault the authority!"  
  
Moran whirled around and faced his boss. "What the hell was that?" he hissed with his teeth clenched.  
  
"Face it, you fucked up." Calhoun responded in a similar manner.  
  
Graham stepped up and helped his comrade off the bench. "I totally agree with this man's statement. All drunkards should be killed."  
  
"Hear, hear! Take these tramps into that bathroom over there. That's the most secluded place in this entire area."  
  
Derek grinned at that. Calhoun was one smooth operator. "I dowanna goo!!!" he wailed pathetically. The guard he assaulted suddenly grabbed him by his shoulders and was immediately put down by Graham.  
  
"Stand down, Laurencio. I'll handle him myself!" Graham produced a baton from his belt, then turned and faced another man, who had Moran's vomit on his pants. "Craig Hudson! Come with me and take the other one. Drag him if you must."  
  
"Yes sir." Said Hudson, taking Franks by his shirt collar.  
  
"Shall I proceed into the train?" asked President Shinra, who had been watching the events unfold before him.  
  
"Yes," said Graham, placing handcuffs on Moran's wrists, "The others are perfectly capable of escorting you. Come on, Hudson."  
  
"LET ME GO!!" Moran proceeded to thrash his body around as best as he could while he was being shepherded into the bathroom. Graham opened the restroom door to let Hudson in, and with a fierce blow to Moran's back with the baton, he shoved him into the room, locking the door as he closed it.  
  
Contreras, Calhoun, and Worley all smiled at once. With the exception of Franks' injury, the plan was going off flawlessly. Now they just had to wait for their men to emerge from the restroom, and the hard part was done.  
  
Ian Graham smiled a toothy, smug grin, his brown teeth showing. He threw Moran onto the grubby white floor, watching the "drunk" squirm around like a headless snake. Graham's follower placed Franks' body next to Moran. Heath had become unconscious almost immediately after his nose had been broken, so he was not much of a problem to them.  
  
"Thank you... now be sure not to tell anyone what we did in here, okay?" Graham said, turning to Hudson, who grinned sheepishly and shrugged.  
  
"Sure, whatever."  
  
Ian's eyebrows furrowed as he approached Moran, who looked up with hangdog eyes. "Don't kill me, man... just lay off!" Derek tried to squeeze out of the cuffs, with no luck. Looking to his side, he saw a pair of feet on the floor, protruding from under a toilet stall. They were Yamamoto's Gore-Tex hiking boots.  
  
Derek could not look further, as a heavy foot hit somewhere under his ribcage. Moran wheezed. He could feel his stomach throb with incredible pain. That bastard hit my kidney, Moran realized at once.  
  
"It seems that you have no respect for authority, you little tramp! Care to explain why you felt the need to heave on my friend's dress pants?" Graham was in a rage.  
  
Because of that, Moran was given no time to respond before the foot hit him a second time, amplifying the pain under his ribs. Attempting to yell out, all that came out of his mouth was a stream of blood from his ruptured kidney. All that Moran could do was roll up in a ball as the third kick thudded into his back.  
  
"Starting to think twice about drinking in President Shinra's presence, eh?" Graham kicked Moran's prone body a fourth time, inciting a muffled grunt.  
  
"Hey, lay off on him!" Hudson tried to pull Graham away.  
  
"Shut up! If you have a weak heart, you shouldn't have joined us!" Graham shoved Hudson away and looked at Franks' body. "Is he dead?"  
  
"I thought that was your goal." Hudson didn't establish eye contact with his superior, but looked at one of the two mirrors on the opposite wall, that were mounted over each sink. He noticed that there was a sizeable part of one of them missing; there was a massive crack down the side of the right mirror-  
  
It was his last thought. Neither of the Shinra bodyguards saw a gangling Asian man grab Hudson by the throat and snatch the 9-millemeter Glock from his hip flask.  
  
"What-" gasped Hudson, his mind racing. Graham turned around to see the Asian man fire a round into the back of his partner's head at point-blank range. The flash and report was suppressed by the man's cranium, but the damage to the skull was clear; the bullet blasted out his forehead, leaving a gaping hole an inch wide. Blood was spattered across the wall ten feet away.  
  
Bill Yamamoto dropped Hudson's remains. It fell over like a doll. Graham looked at the unknown man, then at Franks. They must be buddies, he rationalized. With a sweep of his arms, he picked up Franks by the collar and held the body in front of himself.  
  
"You wouldn't DARE shoot at me now!" said Graham, reaching for his own sidearm.  
  
Yamamoto stared blankly at Graham. "No, but this man's life means nothing to me... You see, all that I need from you is your clothes. Please strip down if you wish to live." Bill centered his sights on Ian's face. He could tell that he was reaching for his own gun, since he only held Franks with one hand. This would be tricky, since Franks was in charge of the explosives that were strapped to his chest. He was to be the "Last resort" weapon, something that he resented being, but agreed to do nonetheless. Hence, he needed to live. Suddenly his opponent broke the silence.  
  
"You some kind of rapist? Jeez, first a drunk, now a rapist! What's next?" Graham had his Glock in his right hand, ready to fire it at the drop of a hat. Alright, Bucko. I don't care if I have to kill you, I'll just feel all the more satisfied at seeing some of the scum that plague my city die at my hands. Graham had been something of an overly upright citizen, having been raised by patriotic parents who wanted him to be a cop when he grew up. This he gleefully became immediately upon graduation from high school. He was the brightest cadet at the Midgar Police Academy, an institution that gladly paid his tuition.  
  
Remembering all this, he prepared to swing the gun up and fire. You only have one chance, kiddo. Make the most of it.  
  
Sadly, it was too late to do anything. Yamamoto's index finger tugged back on the trigger, sending another projectile flying across the bathroom, closing the distance between the two men in a fraction of a second. The bullet entered above Ian's right eye, and rapidly chewed through his brain tissue and out just over the base of his skull, blood showering the wall.  
  
Graham's limbs shot out, the muscles contracting. Franks fell out of the grasp and would have hit the hard, cold floor if Yamamoto hadn't stuck out an arm to support the fall. The Asian man gripped the sleeve of his shirt tightly.  
  
The guard's carcass finally hit the floor, feet twitching. Yamamoto set Franks down on the floor. "You can come out now, Zimmerman," he said.  
  
The young man peeked out of the bathroom stall. "Thanks, I didn't want to kill anyone, just so you know."  
  
"Yes, yes, you're a pacifist. There's a little pacifist in everybody... it's just not as apparent in some." Bill smiled incrementally. "Besides, it's good to let out your frustrations on someone you hate."  
  
"Mghpf." Replied Moran, turning over on his back. His face was still twisted up in his agony, only it had subsided. "Did you get him?"  
  
"Yeah, nice and proper. That gunshot was too loud, though." Zimmerman laid Franks on the floor. Heath's features were ground into a bloody mess, and a sliver of white bone stuck out the bridge of his nose.  
  
Derek managed to get up, but upon standing on his two feet, he let out a groan. "Back!! Hurts!!" He stumbled across the floor and leaned against the wall.  
  
"It'll go away," said Yamamoto, eyeing Franks. "He's useless to us."  
  
"He's a team member. Besides, he has the explosives." Zimmerman began to remove Hudson's shirt and pants. "Let's just get the uniforms and get out of here."  
  
"How am I supposed to get out!?" moaned Moran. "They think-"  
  
"Just walk out once you hear the announcement for the train. There are loudspeakers in here, too, aren't there?"  
  
As if to accentuate this, the intercom system chimed a female voice: "The 9:15 train to Junon is now boarding. Repeat, the 9:15 to Junon is now boarding."  
  
Zimmerman looked at his watch. "It's 9:02. By the way, what should we do with Heath? Should we try to awake him?"  
  
"He's useless to us," said Yamamoto, raising his Glock again-  
  
"NO!!" Moran tried to stop the Asian man, but to no purpose. The gunshot rang in everyone's ears, echoing around the small bathroom.  
  
Zimmerman was in shock. "Why..."  
  
"He was useless. Could YOU do anything with a broken nose while unconscious? Get the C4 off his chest and get into uniform. We're on a clock here, so let's haul ass."  
  
"Seig Heil." Replied Moran. "I'll wait in a stall." He seemed unmoved by his comrade's sudden death.  
  
The two infiltrators got to work.  
  
President Shinra sat down in his private car, which contained a massive yellow sofa (much to his resentment, as it was in incredibly bad taste), a coffee table, a fairly sizeable television, and, his favorite perk, room service by his bodyguards.  
  
Sitting in the sofa, he selected one of the magazines that were on it. There was a fly fishing magazine. With some curiosity, he flipped through it. The first page he turned to was an advertisement for retirement funds.  
  
One thing he regretted about his job was that the only means of retiring was either resigning or dying. Since there was no pension plan for Shinra employees (including himself), resigning was a bad idea.  
  
Of course, there was always the threat of being overthrown or assassinated. He looked to his side and saw his reflection on the black bullet-resistant window. There was a massive frame around the doorway, which served as a metal detector. It did not go off when he was escorted through by the security personnel, but he vaguely remembered being told that all the guards carried plastic sidearms now.  
  
Shinra let out a massive sigh. He felt overprotected. In the back of his mind, he was reminded of his own service as a policeman protecting a Ukrainian diplomat for the United Nations. There was an attempt on his life that Shinra had successfully thwarted, at the expense of taking a rifle bullet to the right lung. The sniper would have killed Ambassador Anatoliy Drukunov if his aim was a little higher.  
  
He rubbed the circular scar on his chest that was still there after 20 years. The surgery had been long and agonizing. In the end, he had to have the entire lung replaced. Fortunately, another man his age had just been in a motorcycle accident the previous day and was considered brain-dead.  
  
Breathing in, he told himself that his right lung once belonged to David Olson of Mideel. Closing his eyes, he tried to filter out all the unpleasant memories...  
  
BRRRRRAAAAAAACCCCCK!!  
  
His eyes snapped open. The light at the top of the metal detector was flashing red and orange, making the hideous buzzing sound. Looks like there's someone with a gun in your cabin, Shinra. After all these years of staying alive, you'll be killed in your own impenetrable train car before your journey even begins! Lucky you...  
  
"Go away!!" Shinra's head was covered with his hands. "Don't kill me!"  
  
The buzzing stopped. He heard the soft padding of footsteps on the carpet, coming towards him. Coming nearer... nearer... nearer...  
  
He felt a reassuring hand on his forearm. "Mr. President?"  
  
Shinra looked up, into the face of an athletic-looking young woman in a full Shinra bodyguard uniform. She laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you."  
  
The President was incredibly embarrassed. "I just have these flashbacks from time to time, you know?"  
  
"Yes," she said, smiling warmly. "Nobody ever forgot that brave act you did so long ago. We don't expect you not to think back to it."  
  
"How did the alarm go off?" Shinra shyly closed his fly fishing magazine.  
  
The female bodyguard took a ring off her finger and held it between her fingers. "It's my engagement ring. Pure silver."  
  
"I'm happy for you." Shinra sighed again. "Can I have some coffee?"  
  
"Coming right up." 


End file.
